Measles outbreak has health officials urging Pennsylvanians to vaccinate

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HARRISBURG, Pa. — Health officials in Pennsylvania are urging people in Pennsylvania to make sure their immunizations are up to date amid confirmed outbreaks of measles in Washington and New York states, WITF reported.

A vaccine known as MMR can help prevent people from getting measles.

The MMR immunization rate among Pennsylvania kindergartners is over 96 percent, WITF reported.

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Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine told WITF that before 2017, children could attend school for nearly the entire year without being up-to-date on their shots.

That has since changed.

"We changed the provisional period from the time that those immunizations have to be up-to-date from approximately eight to nine months down to five days," Levine told WITF.

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