SC’s 3rd measles case confirmed as vaccines face polarizing views by U.S. health officials
COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — South Carolina’s 3rd case of the measles since July has been confirmed by the SC Department of Public Health.
ABC Columbia’s Lee Williams spoke with a local doctor on disease prevention — amid decreasing vaccine rates across the state, and polarizing views across the country.
In a press release, SC DPH says the infected person was unvaccinated and had recently traveled internationally to a country with an ongoing measles outbreak. However, due to privacy restrictions, that person’s age or physical condition can’t be disclosed.
Dr. Martha Buchanan, the department’s Director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Prevention and Control, lists initial symptoms of the respiratory virus as fever, cough, and a runny nose — followed by a rash that persists for five to six days — sometimes leading to hospitalization or even death.
“It’s very contagious, it can remain in the air and be contagious up to two hours after somebody leaves the room, so it’s easy for someone to get it if you haven’t been vaccinated or haven’t had the disease,” says Buchanan.
Through high vaccination rates, doctors say measles were considered eliminated in the U.S. during the 1990’s — now slowly making a comeback.
“We are seeing this resurgence in measles because vaccination rates are going down. People aren’t getting vaccinated as much as they have in the past. We see a decline in vaccination rates across SC. If we look at our school required vaccines, we’ve gone from about 96% a few years ago before Covid to about 93% now. Really for measles, we want to see that vaccination rate up there around 95, 96% to help protect all of us,” says Buchanan.
Vaccines have come under scrutiny more recently as well by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — whose testimony before the Senate Finance Committee last week led to some calling for Kennedy’s resignation.
“You promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then I’ve grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership in the National Institute of Health questioning MRNA vaccines, the Director of the CDC fired — Americans don’t know who to rely on,” says Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming.
Meanwhile, Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo is now promising to end vaccine mandates across Florida.
“The Florida Dept. of Health, in partnership with the governor is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law,” says Ladapo to an applauding room.
However, Dr. Buchanan stresses that vaccines are safe for almost everyone — and over 95% effective.
“If you look around the world where vaccination rates are lower, you see that children still do die from childhood illnesses that we have vaccines to prevent. So I think it’s really important for us to emphasize not just measles vaccines but all vaccines,” says Buchanan.
According to SCDPH, in July, South Carolina had two confirmed cases of measles. The first case was reported, and the second case was identified later and was a known close contact of the first case. Both cases isolated to prevent community spread of measles. In September, South Carolina has one confirmed case of measles that is not associated with the July cases. It total, South Carolina has had three cases of measles in 2025 to date.
For more information about measles visit the DPH website or CDC website.
