A fifth measles cases has been reported in Franklin County.
The case involves an unvaccinated 6-year-old child who traveled abroad, Franklin County Public Health spokeswoman Kristin Howard said Tuesday.
Howard said the case is unrelated to the four cases health officials announced earlier this month. All of those involve members of the same family.
Authorities say one of the infected people visited the New Albany Learning Center located on Swickard Woods Boulevard and the Target on North Hamilton Road on Sept. 25.
Symptoms typically appear seven to 21 days after exposure. That 21-day period ends Thursday, said Assistant Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Alexandria Jones, who appeared Wednesday on All Sides with Amy Juravich.
"Also for next week will be the exclusion of our children at the early learning center, so we're literally hoping that we will be out of the woods here," Jones said.
Of the four earlier cases, Jones said, "We are contained at this point and we have not seen spread outside of that family."
As of Oct. 7, Ohio had 42 reported measles cases in the following eight counties:
- Ashtabula
- Allen
- Cuyahoga
- Defiance
- Franklin
- Holmes
- Knox
- Muskingum
Jones said earlier this month that there were 1,563 confirmed measles cases in 42 states, the highest number in more than three decades.
Jones said those high numbers worry her.
"Definitely a concern as we are looking at herd immunity. We want to maintain that status that measles has been eradicated, but we are at jeopardy for that because of the number of cases that we are seeing," Jones said.
Jones encouraged people to get vaccinated.
Measles is highly contagious and spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
So far, there have been no measles-related deaths in Ohio this year.
