ABC News Denver Denver7 is continuing to inform the community about additional exposures in the Grand Junction area over the Labor Day weekend. Colorado is experiencing the worst measles year in three decades after five additional cases of the highly contagious virus were confirmed in Mesa County over the Labor Day weekend.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) on Saturday announced additional exposures of the preventable disease but made no mention of the additional cases in the county. It was only after Denver7 looked through the state’s measles case information webpage that we found the state had added the additional cases to its tally, bringing the total so far this year to 27. The last time Colorado saw that many cases of the virus was in 1995, when the state reported 26 for the whole year to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). On average, Colorado sees between zero and two cases each year.
State health officials said Saturday people could have been exposed at a pizza joint in Fruita; and at gas stations, a music store, and a hospital in Grand Junction between Friday, Aug. 22 and Wednesday, Aug. 27.