PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A seventh person has died from measles in Pennsylvania.
The Health Department confirmed on Friday that an unvaccinated Montour County resident tested positive for measles and died. This comes just one week after a measles-related death in Jefferson County.
Montour County is about 100 miles northwest of Lancaster County, the epicenter of the measles outbreak.
The number of confirmed measles cases this year is 1,542. There have been 37 newly confirmed cases since Nov. 9. Cases have spread to 46 counties, hospitalizing more than 300 people.
About one-third of the cases are in Lancaster County, with three recorded deaths, two of them infants. Chester County has about 100 cases.
Health officials say all but five cases across the state involve unvaccinated individuals.
This is the worst outbreak the U.S. has seen in decades. Health officials continue to urge people to get the MMR vaccine to protect against the disease.
