COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — State health officials urging Ohioans
to ensure they’re vaccinated for measles and mumps say graduation
celebrations and summer travel can be opportunities for such diseases to
spread if people don’t take preventative measures.
At least 396 cases of mumps have been confirmed in an outbreak of the contagious viral illness in central
Ohio.
The
total has grown to 164 cases for a separate measles outbreak that began
among Amish who had traveled to the Philippines, which has had an
epidemic of the respiratory illness. One-hundred of those cases are in
Knox County.
The Ohio Department of Health says it has distributed
more than 13,000 doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine to fight
the measles outbreak. Officials say local health departments have
administered more than 8,000 of those doses so far.