San Mateo County Grand Jury
• 2018-2019
Is San Mateo County at Risk of a Large Measles Outbreak?
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 9 findings
F1
Outbreaks of measles occur when an infected individual enters an under-immunized community.
No recommendations for this finding
F2
For the 2017/18 school year, the overall measles vaccination rate for public and private school students in San Mateo County exceeded the 93 percent herd immunity level experts say is needed to protect the community as a whole.
No recommendations for this finding
F3
Following the January 1, 2016, effective date of SB 227, use of the personal belief exemption dropped from two percent of students to zero in San Mateo County.
No recommendations for this finding
F4
Schools that admit students with overdue vaccinations create pockets of unimmunized individuals that may facilitate the development of a measles outbreak.
Related Recommendations (2)
R1
School districts that enrolled students who did not meet state vaccination requirements for the 2018/2019 school year should report to their Governing Board whether overdue vaccinations have been completed by October 1, 2019, and the Governing Boards of these districts should publish updated vaccination data for its schools on the school district’s website
R2
Beginning with the 2019/2020 school year, school districts that enroll students who do not meet vaccination requirements in subsequent school years should report to their Governing Board whether overdue vaccinations have been completed by March 31 of each year, and the Governing Board should publish updated vaccination data for its schools on the school district’s website.
F5
The vaccination status of some schoolchildren—notably those who are home-schooled and those in schools with fewer than 20 students—is unknown.
No recommendations for this finding
F6
Adults born after 1957 who never had a measles infection and who lack sufficient vaccination may also be at risk of a measles infection.
No recommendations for this finding
F7
Recent outbreaks in Washington State, New York, and Los Angeles illustrate that pockets of unvaccinated people can pose a risk of outbreaks. Grand Jury correspondence. Ibid. Ibid. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2009 Jan-Feb; 16(1): 18–24.
No recommendations for this finding
F8
Testing for measles immunity at County clinics could identify pockets of people susceptible to measles.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
The San Mateo County Health Communicable Disease Control Program should study the feasibility of testing people visiting San Mateo County clinics for their level of measles immunity. The results of the study should be reported to the San Mateo County Health Department Board
F9
The resources of the SMCDC, which identifies and tracks measles cases in San Mateo County, may be inadequate to contain a major outbreak.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
Within three months of this report, the San Mateo County Health Communicable Disease Control Program should request funding for upgrading the resources needed to address outbreaks of measles and other communicable diseases from the Chief of the San Mateo County Health Department. San Mateo County Health should respond within three months of receiving those requests.
Conclusions 1
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CL1 Page 8Outbreaks of measles occur when an infected individual makes contact with a pocket of non- immune people. San Mateo County has few pockets of unvaccinated school children, and the fact that none of the four 2019 cases of measles spread within the county leads some public health officials to believe that pockets of unvaccinated adults may be sufficiently small and isolated that the risk of a large outbreak is not high. Yet, there is little hard evidence on the immunization status of adults in the county. Thus far, the few isolated cases of measles in the county have been contained by the SMCDC, but given the uncertainties, continued vigilance is prudent.
No Responses Found 1
Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.
San Mateo County Community College District
School District