Ingham County: Vaccination triggered false positive measles test for Michigan baby
'When we test for measles, the first test is very sensitive and can pick up both real infections and traces of the vaccine virus,' said Dr. Nike Shoyinka, Ingham County's medical health officer, in a statement May 14. 'Further testing showed the symptoms were likely from an unrelated illness and the positive test result was due to a recent vaccination, not a case of measles.'
The boy was exposed to a 1-year-old girl who had a confirmed case of measles earlier in April. He was undergoing monitoring by the health department when he developed general respiratory symptoms. That led health officials to test the boy for measles.
The test was positive, which triggered additional monitoring and public notification of his case. However, additional testing by a regional public health reference lab supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the initial positive measles test result was caused by a recent vaccination with the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine.
The MMR vaccine contains weakened live measles virus. This type of detection is not considered an infection and the child was not contagious, the health department said.
"With the availability of the additional testing, this case will no longer be counted as a confirmed measles infection by ICHD or MDHHS," the statement said.
'This situation is a reminder of why timely vaccination is so important,' Shoyinka said. 'The MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent measles and protect public health.'
More: Montcalm County has Michigan's first measles outbreak of 2025
More: What are the symptoms of measles? And other answers to common questions.
In Michigan, there have been eight confimed measles cases this year, including a cluster of four cases in Montcalm County that constitute an outbreak.
An adult from Oakland County who traveled internationally with an unknown vaccination history and was the state's first measles case of 2025. The person exposed others March 8-10 at a restaurant in Rochester and at Henry Ford Rochester Hospital.
A traveler from Kent County who potentially exposed hundreds of other people to measles March 24-28 when visiting Metropolitan Airport in Romulus and the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, along with a restaurant in Kentwood and a Corewell Health facility in East Grand Rapids.
An adult from Macomb County who traveled to the Windsor-Essex County area of Ontario, Canada. The case was announced April 4, and the person is not believed to have gone out in public while infectious, so there are no known exposure sites.
A 1-year-old girl from Ingham County who got one dose of the MMR vaccine the day before traveling through a Michigan airport out of state with her family. But it wasn't enough time for her body to mount an immune response. Her infection was reported April 14, and she exposed others at multiple locations in Lansing, East Lansing, and Okemos, including at a farmers market, a preschool/day care center, a restaurant, a hospital emergency department and a building on the Michigan State University campus.
Four cases in Montcalm County that were identified in April and are tied to an ongoing outbreak in Ontario, Canada.
Nationally, the CDC has confirmed 1,001 measles cases in 30 states as of May 8. Of them, about 68% have been among children and teenagers, and 96% have been among people who were either unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown.
One dose of the MMR vaccine provides about 93% protection against the virus, and two doses offer about 97% coverage, the CDC says. It recommends the following for MMR vaccines:
A first dose for children at 12 months-15 months old, with a booster dose administered between ages 4 and 6.
Anyone born during or after 1957 without evidence of immunity against measles or documentation of having been vaccinated with two doses of MMR vaccine should get vaccinated.
People exposed to measles who cannot document immunity against the virus should get post-exposure prophylaxis — a dose of the vaccine to potentially provide protection within 72 hours of initial exposure, or immunoglobulin within six days of exposure.
The CDC changed its recommendations in 1989 from one dose of the MMR vaccine to two doses, which provides longer-lasting and more robust protection. People born between 1957 and 1989 who have had just a single dose of the vaccine may be at a higher risk of contracting the virus in an outbreak setting.
Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Free Press.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Vaccination led to false positive measles test for Ingham County baby
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
4th person dies after a Legionnaires' disease outbreak sickens dozens in New York City
NEW YORK (AP) — A fourth person has died in connection with a Legionnaires' disease outbreak in New York City, health officials disclosed Thursday as they revealed that some cooling towers that tested positive for the bacteria are in city-run buildings. The outbreak in Central Harlem has sickened dozens since it began in late July. Seventeen people were hospitalized as of Thursday, according to the health department. The bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease had been discovered in 12 cooling towers on 10 buildings, including a city-run hospital and sexual health clinic, health officials said. Remediation efforts have been completed on 11 of the cooling towers, with the final tower's remediation required to be completed Friday. Legionnaires' disease is a type of pneumonia that is caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water and spread through building water systems. The city's outbreak has been linked to cooling towers, which use water and a fan to cool buildings. People usually develop symptoms — a cough, fever, headaches, muscle aches and shortness of breath — between two days to two weeks after exposure to the bacteria, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Michelle Morse, the city's acting health commissioner, said new cases in the Central Harlem outbreak have begun to decline 'which indicates that the sources of the bacteria have been contained.' She urged people who live or work in the area to contact a health care provider if they develop flu-like symptoms.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Shooter attacked CDC headquarters to protest COVID-19 vaccines
ATLANTA (AP) — The man who fired more than 180 shots with a long gun at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention broke into a locked safe to get his father's weapons and wanted to send a message against COVID-19 vaccines, authorities said Tuesday. Documents found in a search of the home where Patrick Joseph White had lived with his parents 'expressed the shooter's discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations,' Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said. White, 30, had written about wanting to make 'the public aware of his discontent with the vaccine,' Hosey added. White also had recently verbalized thoughts of suicide, which led to law enforcement being contacted several weeks before the shooting, Hosey said. He died at the scene Friday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after killing DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. The shooting reflects the dangers public health leaders have been experiencing around the country since anti-vaccine vitriol took root during the pandemic. Such rhetoric has been amplified as President Donald Trump's Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., repeatedly makes false and misleading statements about the safety of immunizations. 'We know that misinformation can be dangerous. Not only to health, but to those that trust us and those we want to trust,' Dr. Susan Monarez told CDC employees in an 'all-hands' meeting Tuesday, her first since the attack capped her first full week on campus as the CDC's director. 'We need to rebuild the trust together,' Monarez said, according to a transcript obtained by the AP. 'The trust is what binds us. In moments like this, we must meet the challenges with rational, evidence based discourse spoken with compassion and understanding. That is how we will lead.' White's parents have fully cooperated with the investigation of their son, who had no known criminal history, Hosey said at the Tuesday news briefing. With a search warrant at the family's home in the Atlanta suburb of Kennesaw, authorities recovered written documents and electronic devices that are being analyzed. Investigators also recovered five firearms, including a gun of his father's that he used in the attack, Hosey said. White did not have a key to the gun safe, Hosey said: 'He broke into it.' CDC security guards stopped White from driving into the campus on Friday before he parked near a pharmacy across the street and opened fire from a sidewalk. The bullets pierced 'blast-resistant' windows across the campus, pinning employees down during the barrage. More than 500 shell casings were recovered, the GBI said. In the aftermath, CDC officials are assessing campus security and encouraging staff to alert authorities to any new threats, including those based on misinformation regarding the CDC and its vaccine work. 'We've not seen an uptick, although any rhetoric that suggests or leads to violence is something we take very seriously.' said FBI Special Agent Paul Brown, who leads the agency's Atlanta division. 'This is a targeted attack on the CDC related to COVID-19," Williams said. 'All indications are that this was an isolated event involving one individual.' The fact that CDC's security stopped him from entering the campus 'prevented what I can only imagine to be a lot of casualties," Williams said. 'Nearly 100 children at the childcare center were reunited with their parents at the end of the night,' he said. "The protections we have in place did an excellent job.' Kennedy toured the CDC campus on Monday, accompanied Monarez. 'No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,' Kennedy said in a statement Saturday, without addressing the potential impact of anti-vaccine rhetoric. Kennedy refused to directly answer when asked during an interview with Scripps News on Monday what message he had for CDC employees who are worried about the culture of misinformation and skepticism around vaccines. Although law enforcement officials have made clear the shooter was targeting the public health agency over the COVID-19 vaccine, Kennedy said in the interview that not enough was known about his motives. He described political violence as 'wrong,' but went on to criticize the agency's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. "The government was overreaching in its efforts to persuade the public to get vaccinated and they were saying things that are not always true,' Kennedy said. Some unionized CDC employees called for more protections, and some who recently left amid widespread layoffs squarely blamed Kennedy.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
CDC shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Georgia investigators say
ATLANTA — The man who fired more than 180 shots with a long gun at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention broke into a locked safe to get his father's weapons and wanted to send a message against COVID-19 vaccines, authorities said Tuesday. Documents found in a search of the suspect's home 'expressed the shooter's discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations,' Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said. White had written about wanting make 'the public aware of his discontent with the vaccine,' he said. Patrick Joseph White, 30, also had recently verbalized thoughts of suicide, which led to law enforcement being contacted several weeks before the shooting, Hosey said. He died at the scene Friday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after killing a police officer. The suspect's family was fully cooperating with the investigation, authorities said at the Tuesday news briefing. White had no known criminal history, Hosey said. Executing a search warrant at White's home, authorities recovered written documents that are being analyzed, and seized electronic devices that are undergoing a forensic examination, the agency said. Investigators also recovered a total of five firearms, including a gun that belonged to his father that he used in the attack, Hosey said. Hosey said the suspect did not have a key to the gun safe, Hosey said. 'He broke into it,' he said. More than 500 shell casings have been recovered from the crime scene, the GBI said. In the aftermath, officials at the CDC are assessing the security of the campus and making sure they notify officials of any new threats. The shooting Friday broke about 150 windows across the CDC campus, with bullets piercing 'blast-resistant' windows and spattering glass shards into numerous rooms, and pinned many employees down during the barrage. White had been stopped by CDC security guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street, where he opened fire from a sidewalk, authorities said. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. toured the CDC campus on Monday, accompanied by Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill and CDC Director Susan Monarez, according to a health agency statement. Kennedy also visited the DeKalb County Police Department, and later met privately with the slain officer's wife. 'No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,' Kennedy said in a statement Saturday. It said top federal health officials are 'actively supporting CDC staff.' He did not speak to the media during his visit Monday. Some unionized CDC employees called for more protections against attack. Kennedy was a leader in a national anti-vaccine movement before President Donald Trump selected him to oversee federal health agencies, and has made false and misleading statements about the safety and effectiveness of about COVID-19 shots and other vaccines. Years of false rhetoric about vaccines and public health was bound to 'take a toll on people's mental health,' and 'leads to violence,' said Tim Young, a CDC employee who retired in April.
