By Dawn Burleigh

The Orange Leader

 

After waiting a week for test results, Orange County Emergency Management (OCEM) confirmed on Friday there are no confirmed cases of measles in Orange County.

“Orange County Emergency Management has received the results from the suspect case of measles from the state labs. The results were negative for measles,” according to a press release from OCEM.

Concerns were raised last week when an infant was brought to St. Elizabeth Hospital for testing.

Chauntel Romero, the mother of the child tested, took to Facebook last week to clear up rumors about her child, returned to Facebook to announce the results of the tests.

“We received the results for the tests this morning. BOTH the blood test and the swab came back NEGATIVE! No measles!!!! I repeat, she never had measles! Again, our family appreciates all of the prayers and kind words. I can’t explain how relieved I am!,” Romero wrote in her post.

There have been six confirmed cases of measles in Texas in 2019.  There were nine cases in 2018 after the three previous years had one case each year.

From January 1 to February 7, 2019, 101 individual cases of measles have been confirmed in 10 states, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The states that have reported cases to CDC are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

In a given year, more measles cases can occur for any of the following reasons:

• an increase in the number of travelers who get measles abroad and bring it into the U.S., and/or
• further spread of measles in U.S. communities with pockets of unvaccinated people

Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90-percent of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected.

Infected people can spread measles to others from four days before to four days after a rash appears.