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South Carolina’s measles outbreak is prompting Prisma Health, one the state’s major health care systems, to begin requiring masks for anyone entering its hospitals’ labor and delivery units and other birthing areas, as well as its emergency departments.
Prisma Health’s announcement on Wednesday came two days after Healthbeat revealed measles exposure incidents in the labor and delivery unit at Prisma Health Greer Memorial Hospital and in the emergency department of Prisma Health Greenville Memorial Hospital, as well as at some of the system’s other urgent care and private practice offices.
At a press conference, Prisma physicians said the new masking requirements are an additional safety measure being taken in response to the growing outbreak, which has had a spike in new cases since the holidays. As of Tuesday, state health officials had confirmed 876 measles cases, mostly in and near Spartanburg County.
“There is no incident that has prompted this,” said Dr. Kendreia Dickens-Carr, a Prisma Health OB-GYN. “This is a public health concern, and the measures that we are taking is to prevent any more [cases].”
Dickens-Carr said obstetric floors at Prisma Health hospitals across South Carolina, just like the emergency departments, will enforce masking on entry for all patients and those accompanying them until they have been evaluated to determine if they have an infectious disease.
In labor and delivery and other birthing areas, any patient or care partner who has a fever, rash, or respiratory symptoms will be asked to keep wearing their mask, the Prisma press release said.
Internal state health department records obtained by Healthbeat under South Carolina’s public records law list several public exposure incidents during December and January across Prisma Health facilities, from hospitals to urgent care centers and pediatrics practices. Similar measles exposure incidents have also occurred in facilities operated by the region’s other major health provider, the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, the records show.
The exposure at the labor and delivery unit at Prisma Health Greer Memorial Hospital, which is located between Spartanburg and Greenville, is of particular concern, experts say, because of the increased risks measles poses to unvaccinated mothers and their babies.
Prisma Health has not answered Healthbeat’s questions since last week about how and when the exposure occurred at the labor and delivery unit and whether anyone became infected. The Prisma Health representatives at Wednesday’s press conference again declined to answer these questions.
The risks of pregnant women being exposed to measles was among issues highlighted Wednesday by South Carolina state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell in her weekly call with reporters about the current state of the outbreak.
Bell said the South Carolina Department of Public Health has learned of 19 people, including children and adults, who have required hospitalization for complications of measles since the outbreak started last fall. These complications have included measles encephalitis in children – a dangerous swelling of the brain that can have long-term consequences.
“Additionally, several pregnant women were exposed to and required administration of immune globulin to protect against the high risk of complications for measles to pregnant women and their newborns that they could infect,” Bell said.
Immune globulin is a type of protective antibody treatment. Bell declined to provide additional details or say whether the exposures occurred in health care settings.
Alison Young is Healthbeat’s senior national reporter. You can reach her at ayoung@healthbeat.org or through the messaging app Signal at alisonyoungreports.48.
