US CDC deploys staff to curb South Carolina's measles outbreak

By Puyaan Singh and Mariam Sunny

March 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff will arrive in South Carolina next week to help the state contain the largest measles outbreak in the country in decades, a state official said in a briefing on Wednesday.

The first CDC on the ground assist comes some five months after the South Carolina outbreak began.

The state reported five additional measles cases so far this week as the outbreak neared 1,000 cases. But health officials said infections appear to be slowing, aided by a strong vaccination response in February, which is up 70% compared with the same month last year.

Three CDC disease detectives from the agency's Epidemic Intelligence Service are expected to help analyze data collected during the outbreak, said Dr. Linda Bell, South Carolina's epidemiologist.

Last week, Reuters reported that a dozen non-CDC public health experts paid for by the nonprofit CDC Foundation were arriving in South Carolina to help the state contain the outbreak.

The CDC generally provides scientists and medical officers for brief deployments of a few weeks, which the state's health department said last week do not fulfill needs to support daily job functions.

Bell said in a briefing that staff from the CDC Foundation helped with "day-to-day work that supports those disease containment efforts," while CDC officers would help analyze the massive data generated nearly 22 weeks into the outbreak to better understand transmission chains.

ELIMINATION STATUS IN JEOPARDY

South Carolina's measles outbreak has become the nation's largest since 1992, with 990 cases reported as of Tuesday. Its childhood immunization rates had declined in recent years as local political leaders and parents criticized the CDC's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and pushed back against COVID-related lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

The U.S. is trying to retain its status of having eliminated measles even after recording the highest number of confirmed infections in three decades.

Earlier this week, the Pan American Health Organization said the United States has requested a postponement to review its measles elimination status until November.

Deployment of CDC staff comes after the agency's new acting director, Jay Bhattacharya, on Monday urged Americans to get vaccinated against measles, saying it was the best protection against the disease.

The previous acting CDC head, Jim O'Neill, raised questions about the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine last fall, without evidence, and called for it to be split into several shots.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has dropped broad recommendations for six childhood vaccines, saying that parents must make these decisions in consultation with a doctor, drawing rebukes from major medical groups.

Bhattacharya also serves as director of the National Institutes of Health.