Utah measles case traced to European travel

HOLLADAY — The five locally confirmed cases of measles likely originated with a Utah family who recently vacationed in Poland to pick up their missionary daughter.

Health department epidemiologists traced the disease back to an initial case of an Evergreen Junior High School student who has since been allowed to return to school because he is no longer contagious. That student posted on his Facebook page on April 5 that he had recently traveled to Poland. His sister also recently returned from the Poland Warsaw Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Another sister, who attends Olympus High School, also posted online about being stuck at home, specifically missing calculus class, "just because I never got immunized … this is lame sauce," she wrote.

She also stated that her family could be fined for going back to school without clearance from the health department. The Utah Department of Health confirmed that is a possibility.

"Voluntary compliance is obviously the best way to go," said UDOH spokesman Tom Hudachko. He said any violation of a lawful order of the health department, which operates under the state health code and carries a potential for a $10,000 fine.

All five of the confirmed measles cases in Salt Lake County were cleared to return to school, as "they are past the infectious period," said Salt Lake Valley Health Department spokesman Nicholas Rupp.

The department has only confirmed those five cases and has announced one additional probable case of the measles since the announcement of the local outbreak. If no additional cases are confirmed, the virus will again be dormant in the area.

However, Davis County Health Department officials are investigating three "rash illnesses" but have not confirmed them to be measles, specifically, said spokesman Bob Ballew. He said the cases, which range in age from infant to adult, have yet to meet a measles case definition but that the department is "watching them closely."

More than a couple dozen other students remain excluded from classes at four Granite School District schools because they either had not been immunized or could not produce records of having the vaccine, said district spokesman Ben Horsley. Unvaccinated students exposed to the virus could still come down with it.

"They were sent home for their own safety," Horsley said, adding that the district acted under the direction of the health department, which asked the excluded students to remain on voluntary quarantine and stay inside their homes.