Arizona tries to contain measles outbreak before Super Bowl

PHOENIX - Health officials in three Arizona counties said hundreds of people may have been exposed to the highly contagious measles virus, three days before thousands of sports fans pour into the state for the Super Bowl.

The National Football League championship game will be held in Maricopa County at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale on Sunday. Officials there, and in Pinal and Gila counties, are looking for people who have been to hospitals, grocery stores and a post office where infected residents visited.

"Measles is wildly infectious, which is why it is so important that we identify cases quickly and do our best to stop the spread early on," Bob England, director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, said in a statement. "That means keeping unvaccinated people who have been exposed to the disease away from others."

Arizona has reported seven cases so far in its first outbreak since 2008, two in Maricopa County and five in Pinal County, one of which was found in Gila County. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to man, with each original patient able to infect many others if they aren't vaccinated. The spread of the California outbreak has been made worse, in part, by a growing failure to vaccinate, health officials have said.

Maricopa health workers are trying to track down 195 people, mostly children, Jeanene Fowler, a spokeswoman for the county health department said in an e-mail Thursday.

The virus can linger in the air or on surfaces for hours, and health officials are contacting those exposed. Maricopa's county health department said people who have been exposed and aren't fully vaccinated should stay at home for 21 days. If they need to go out in public they should wear a mask, the department said in a Jan. 27 statement.

This isn't the measles' first Super Bowl. In 2012 in Indiana, a boy with measles went to the "Super Bowl village," a pre-game convention, a few days before the event.

"Our concern was it would be transmitted to the crowd at the Super Bowl," said Gregory Larkin, the former Indiana state health commissioner.

The only others infected were family members or friends of the boy.

The NFL is confident most players have been vaccinated and are at low risk, said Clare Graff, a league spokeswoman, and medical staffs have been told to be vigilant.

The league prepares for diseases like the flu each year, including posting hand sanitizer dispensers throughout the stadium and at other event venues, Ricardo Martinez, the senior medical adviser to the Super Bowl, said in an e-mail.

The University of Arizona will have a group of students from the epidemiology program at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health helping first responders at the Super Bowl watch for any potential measles cases.

"We know measles, we know that it can get out of hand," Kristen Pogreba-Brown, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the college, said in an interview.

Pogreba-Brown leads an epidemiology course that will post a student at each of the stadium's six first aid stations. The students will question people that visit the stations to check for rash, fever and travel history. They'll also check for signs of other diseases, such as gastrointestinal symptoms that could signal norovirus, the U.S.'s leading cause of infection from contaminated food.

Disney Outbreak

The Arizona measles cases are among 84 identified this year in 14 states, 67 of which are linked to Anaheim's Disneyland amusement park, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Arizona allows vaccination exemptions for children entering public schools for religious reasons as well as what's known as a philosophical exemption, where parents can choose not to vaccinate and still send their children to school.

The outbreak is a "wake-up call" to improve vaccination rates, Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a conference call Thursday.

"These outbreaks the past couple years have been much harder to control when the virus reaches communities where numbers of people have not been vaccinated," Schuchat said.

While most states permit religious exemptions from vaccine requirements, 19 states also have so-called philosophical exemptions, including Arizona and California, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.