By Siddhi Mahatole
Dec 30 (Reuters) - The South Carolina health department reported 176 measles cases related to the ongoing outbreak in the state on Tuesday, 20 additional cases since its last update on Friday.
The widening outbreak has been reported in the northwest part of the state, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Health.
There are currently 287 people in quarantine and two in isolation.
Of those infected, 165 were unvaccinated, four
were partially vaccinated with one of the recommended two-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, one was fully vaccinated and four had unknown vaccination status.
Linda Bell, South Carolina's state epidemiologist, said holiday gatherings and travel likely contributed to the surge in cases.
"We do believe that the holidays contributed to this, in terms of activities that people may have participated in, without being as cautious as they could be, and sort of opting to just participate in other activities without paying attention to disease transmission in our communities," Bell said.
Seven of the new cases were known household exposures, five resulted from a previously reported school exposure, two resulted from an exposure at church, and one resulted from an exposure at either school or church, the state health department said.
The sources of four cases are unknown, and one is still being investigated.
"So the trajectory that we're looking at now is that we do anticipate more cases well into January," Bell added.
As of December 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 50 measles outbreaks and a total of 2,012 confirmed cases of the disease in the U.S. this year, compared with 16 outbreaks reported in 2024.
The CDC defines an outbreak as three or more related cases.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny and Siddhi Mahatole in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Alan Barona)
