The Pennsylvania health officials have announced that the measles scare at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia and a neighboring pharmacy has finally ended this week.
Issuing a statement over a suspected case, the state health department said that the person who was on Monday suspected to have measles, was tested negative for the highly contagious disease.
Pennsylvania health secretary Michael Wolf said, “Based on initial information received from those involved in the treatment of the individual and based on initial investigation by the department, it was believed this was a likely case of measles and public notification was made out of an abundance of caution.”
The authorities have, however, not revealed the identity of the person.
According to Wolf, southeastern Pennsylvania is facing no public health threat for measles.
The health department had issued the initial measles exposure alert as the officials had recorded 20 measles outbreaks across the nation over the past year despite knowing the fact that measles is considered as a vaccine-preventable disease.
The officials were more concerned about the outbreak as the appearance of the symptoms for measles could take up to two weeks among those who were exposed to the virus.
A health department statement said that the “infected droplets and secretions can remain contagious on surfaces for up to two hours,”
Health experts said that the measles-causing virus can also spread through the air medium and have the potential to remain airborne for a few hours.
The health experts were mainly concerned about the visit of the person to the museum and infection caused to the visitors who have come to see the museum. According to the health experts, there may be high risk groups, mainly the young ones, who hardly had their MMR vaccination that protects against developing the measles.
Reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have showed 610 measles case in 20 different outbreaks in 2014. The figures for 2014 alone are more than triple the cases reported in any single year since 2001. According to the health agency, a massive outbreak in the Philippines may be partially responsible for it.
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