The nationwide vaccination decline could result in an increase in infectious disease outbreaks at USC, Chief Campus Health Officer Dr. Sarah Van Orman said in a briefing with campus media Tuesday morning. Van Orman said that the measles outbreak in Texas is “very concerning.”  

In Texas, 124 measles cases have been identified since the start of the year, with 18 people hospitalized. An unvaccinated child in Texas died of measles Wednesday, marking the first measles death in the United States in ten years. Van Orman said these outbreaks tend to be contained within communities with low vaccination rates, but with nationwide declines in measles vaccinations, outbreaks could become much larger.

“The challenge with measles is that in order to prevent spread within the community, you have to have vaccination rates in the high 90 [percents],” Van Orman said. “What we’ve seen, unfortunately, is in many communities in the United States, declining measles vaccination rates, and measles vaccination rates declining to a level where we’re not going to be able to prevent spread.”

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Measles is an airborne disease and can remain infectious in the air for up to two hours. Van Orman said that while most people with measles recover, it can result in debilitating health consequences. Van Orman said any exposure to measles is considered a “public health emergency.”

“[Measles] spreads very, very rapidly. If someone’s just been in the same big airspace with someone with measles … we consider that to be an exposure,” Van Orman said. “You can imagine if someone with measles were going to be walking around an environment like USC, how many people could potentially be exposed.”

As the Chief Campus Health Officer, Van Orman said her role is to be transparent about what good public health policy looked like at a university, and to be an advocate for students, staff and faculty. Van Orman said she encouraged community members to be educated on the risk of infectious diseases.

“I encourage people to learn as much as they can, to … help people understand the ongoing risk of communicable disease, and common sense things including advocating for strong public policy around appropriate vaccinations and also for surveillance systems, because the way we detect these things are through our public health agencies doing surveillance,” Van Orman said. 

Van Orman said flu vaccinations at USC have plateaued despite the flu being “particularly bad” this year. Although the number of flu cases has begun to decline, USC continues to see elevated numbers. 

Van Orman noted the “robust” vaccine requirements and records at USC would protect the community in the case of a measles outbreak. Students with proof of vaccination would be able to attend class as usual, while unvaccinated students would be quarantined until the threat passed. 

Students can check their vaccination status through MySHR and schedule any desired vaccinations through Student Health, and community members can check their vaccination status with a blood test done by their primary care physician.

In 1998, researcher Andrew Wakefield published a study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. The study had been discredited, but Van Orman said that it has continued to bring down vaccination rates in the United States. 

“The measles vaccination is safe. It’s effective. It saves lives. We’ve been doing it for decades,” Van Orman said. “To see people impacted, dying, having health consequences for what really is a vaccine preventable disease is devastating as a physician.”