Pennsylvania is seeking emergency assistance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a major measles outbreak spreads across the state. The state warned the request could be withdrawn unless the federal agency publicly recognizes four measles-associated deaths reported by the state.
The Pennsylvania department of health has begun the process of requesting CDC emergency support known as an Epi-Aid, according to a letter reviewed by the Guardian. The letter was first reported by Reuters on Thursday.
Debra Bogen, Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, outlined the condition in a letter sent on Wednesday to the CDC director, Erica Schwartz.
“The CDC’s choice not to publicly recognize the deaths undermines our response,” Bogen wrote. “For this reason, if CDC is unable to transparently and accurately communicate information about those measles-associated deaths, the department will respectfully rescind our request for a CDC Epi-Aid.”
The development comes amid an ongoing dispute involving Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic governor, and Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, over the state’s handling of the outbreak and how measles-related deaths are being counted.
Kennedy has questioned whether deaths linked to the measles outbreaks since he took office were caused by the virus or by another condition. He also instructed the CDC not to include Pennsylvania’s reported fatalities in the national measles death count last month, a move health experts called “highly unusual” and warned it could lead the public to underestimate the dangers of measles.
Kennedy, meanwhile, has accused Shapiro of politicizing Pennsylvania’s outbreak and failing to seek out federal assistance.
The state’s latest move marks a shift from its earlier position. Pennsylvania health officials had previously resisted CDC assistance, saying they were capable of managing the outbreak without federal help. Since then, the situation has worsened.
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania health department announced that 731 measles cases have been confirmed in 38 counties across the state so far this year. Four people have died in the state from measles-related illness as of Tuesday.
The CDC did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
The outbreak is among the largest and deadliest in the country and comes as the US experiences its most severe measles resurgence in more than three decades, driven by increasing vaccine hesitancy.
This month, it was revealed that the Trump administration changed the way it counts measles deaths amid the outbreak in Pennsylvania. The CDC is now using data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which is a way to track mortality trends over time. It is unclear why this change was made.
On Wednesday, Bill Cassidy, a Republican chair of the Senate health committee, blamed the Trump administration’s vaccine-skeptical approach for the recent measles deaths in Pennsylvania.
