County Supervisors Rule Measles Epidemic Is Public Health Hazard

County supervisors, responding to San Diego County’s worst measles epidemic in 10 years, declared Tuesday that a public health hazard exists, making the county eligible for state funds to bolster inoculation programs.

By April 4, more than 487 reported and probable cases had been reported in the county, up from 191 cases during all of 1989 and more than in 1982, the last epidemic year, when 451 cases were reported. The county has not in recent times issued a “Declaration of Public Health Hazard” for measles or other common diseases such as mumps or German measles, Dr. G. William Cox, director of the county’s Department of Health Services, said.

The declaration makes San Diego eligible for as much as $147,181 in state money that would be used to hire personnel and purchase vaccine. However, preliminary indications from the state suggest that the county will only receive about $65,000. “We’ll take what we can get,” Cox said.

The state, which supplies much of the medicine used to vaccinate needy children, has made $1.2 million available to counties that have been overwhelmed by measles in recent months. More than 1,800 measles cases have been reported this year in California, and the epidemic has taken 24 lives. Measles is suspected in the death this year of a San Diego boy.

“What is important about this epidemic is the severity of the cases we’re seeing,” Cox said. “Statewide, one in four people who contract measles are being hospitalized.”

Though inoculations prevent most people from contracting measles, health officials’ efforts to contain the outbreak have been stymied because the disease is hitting many unvaccinated preschool children.

“Previously, this was spread at schools, and we knew how to go right in and (control it),” Cox said.

But preschoolers often infect their parents and other children, and subsequently transmit the disease to other people during visits to doctors’ offices and clinics, Cox said.

The emergency declaration makes it possible for the county to seek state funds without the normal requirement that it match the state funds dollar for dollar.

Supervisors also agreed to spend an additional $73,591 on wages related to a larger inoculation program.