Melnick on measles outbreak: ‘We’re not out of the woods yet’

Clark County’s measles outbreak has become a roller coaster ride.

“It’s kind of peaks and valleys,” said Clark County Public Health Director Dr. Alan Melnick.

It’s been almost two months since the first exposure reported by Public Health, and it seemed like the outbreak might have been slowing down last week — before a flurry of new confirmed cases rolled in on Feb. 16 and 17.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Melnick said.

The number of confirmed measles cases held steady at 53 between Feb. 8 and Feb. 15, with one new case added but one old case eliminated because of new testing.

The lull ended with six new cases reported on Feb. 16, and two more the next day. One confirmed case was identified on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to bring the total to 65 confirmed cases as of Saturday. There is one suspected case.

Melnick said there is generally a week to a week and a half between each wave of the outbreak. He said the county could see more cases this week, since there were more exposure locations identified on Feb. 14, 15 and 18.

Several locations of the Vancouver Clinic were identified as possible exposure site on those dates. Melnick said he feels like people are doing a better job of calling ahead if they have measles-like symptoms before visiting health care providers, even with those recent exposures.

“There’s less of that than there was at the beginning,” he said.

The outbreak has cost Clark County more than $500,000, and there’s around $18,500 spent each day on response efforts. Public Health has budgeted $750,000 for outbreak response through March 14.

Melnick added that Public Health’s active monitoring has been doing a good job of keeping people at home, so that they don’t contaminate others. Melnick said you can see that the approach is working because less exposure sites are popping up each week.

“The exposures are dropping,” Melnick said. “I’m fairly optimistic.”