The determination that a case of measles, diagnosed at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and later confirmed by state public health epidemiologists was not measles has raised questions about how state and local public health officials work with the hospital and Island doctors.
With more than 600 doses of the vaccine that prevents measles, the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital began inoculating unvaccinated children and adults Wednesday evening, following a confirmed case of measles on the Island.
The Martha’s Vineyard Hospital will hold two free vaccination clinics today and tomorrow following a diagnosis of measles in an unvaccinated child visiting the Island from another state last week. Health officials report public exposures occurred in West Tisbury, Chilmark and Oak Bluffs.
Vineyard elementary schools have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the state, according to a list of vaccination rates released by the state Department of Public Health. The West Tisbury and Tisbury schools are among the lowest.
The number of kindergartners who are not fully immunized was above the state average in three of the five Vineyard towns with elementary schools last year, a fact which worries Island doctors who see the choice of parents to not immunize their child against illnesses such as mumps, measles and rubella as a threat not only to the health of that child but the school community at large.
