All right, I'd like to call this meeting of the um public health and safety committee to order it is 301.

And we will start with introductions in the room.

Sure, Gerger.

Anna Raleigh.

Cameron Perez for Dia.

Yarrow Silvers.

Sydney Scout.

And do we have anybody on the phone?

Okay.

First on our agenda is department updates.

And the only uh department update that I see before me now is the Anchorage Health Department.

Would you like to come up with the Speaker 1?

Good afternoon, everyone.

Kimberly Rash, Anchorage Health Department.

Today we're going to give a little update on measles.

So as everyone has probably seen, there has been some news on measles and wastewater.

So today we have the health department's epidemiologist here to enlighten us a little bit about it.

And she has a handout that I believe all of you have as well.

Perfect that she will go over as well.

So I will let her introduce herself and then give the update.

And if there's any questions, let us know.

Thanks everyone.

Kristen Van Durand, the epidemiologist.

So first a little context about what measles is.

It's a highly contagious viral illness.

It spreads through respiratory droplets and airborne particles.

Important thing to know about measles, it can hang in the air up to two hours after a person has left.

So someone could be in a room, have measles, leave the room, leave the car, someone who's unprotected, meaning unvaccinated, could come into that room up to two hours later and contract measles.

So why are we concerned about measles?

It isn't just a ration fever, it can be serious.

So complications include ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis or brain swelling, and even death.

So some statistics on this would be one in 20 children who contract measles will get pneumonia, and that's the most common cause of death from measles in young children.

And tragically, one out of every three persons who contract one out of it, one to three out of every 1,000 people with measles will die.

So this is a very serious illness and again, very, very contagious.

It's preventable.

So the measles vaccine was introduced in the United States in the 1960s.

Before that time, there were an estimated three to four million cases of measles every year.

So to put that in context, that's like having the population of Anchorage times 10 getting measles every year.

After vaccines were introduced, this story changed dramatically to the point that measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000.

It became something that we didn't see very often.

You had providers who had never seen a measles case or had seen very few measles cases in their career.

However, the situation and anyone who's read the news knows that the situation changed in the United States, particularly starting in 2025.

And the total for the year ended up being over 2,000 cases.

Notably, the majority of these cases came from measles outbreaks, 94%.

And again, the majority of those were among persons who were unvaccinated or didn't their vaccination status was unknown.

That was 93%.

So what's the situation here in Anchorage?

In 2026, Anchorage has not had a measles case reported.

We had one case reported in 2025.

That was in May of 2025 with an Anchorage resident.

And the health department along with the state did respond to a measles case in October.

That was among a traveler.

So that's not counted here.

That's assigned to the case that the place that the traveler came from.

We did, however, have a measles detection in the wastewater in July.

And again, no measles cases reported in 2026, and that includes up until today following those measles detections.

This measles detection suggests that virus was present within Anchorage during this time period.

What a measles detection in wastewater does not tell us, does not confirm that there was a community case or indicate that there was community transmission.

We don't know if that meant that there was one person, more than one person.

It doesn't tell us that that was someone who is a resident here or someone who was passing through.