Northern Kentucky Health officials are trying to track down people who may have been exposed to measles this week. A child whose family was visiting the area was diagnosed with the respiratory disease.
Skip Tate with Northern Kentucky Health says the family was at a Holiday Inn Express in Dry Ridge, and the Ark Encounter near Williamstown.
“You’re passing people all the time, they’re passing you. There’s hands-on exhibits. It was the first day of a show about the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so they’re probably packed into a tight theater,” he says. “This is such a highly contagious disease. It has the ability to just hang out in the air, if you cough or sneeze, for an hour or two.”
Measles was technically wiped out in the United States about 25 years ago. Vaccination rates have dropped since then, and the number of cases has been climbing.
Tate says symptoms can appear weeks after exposure, and it's contagious that whole time.
“If some of these other kids were maybe at the Ark during this time, and they don’t start showing symptoms until two or three weeks later, they’re back in school,” he says. “It gets into the school system and it can really go wild from there.”
Tate says if you do show symptoms, including fever, cough, runny nose and eyes, isolate. He says the infamous rash associated with measles is one of the last symptoms to appear.
He says about 90% of Kentuckians are vaccinated against measles. He says herd immunity is close to 97%. Tate says the two-stage vaccine is 97% effective.
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