SPARTANBURG — Fairforest Elementary School and Global Academy are at the center of the Spartanburg County measles outbreak, the Department of Public Health said Oct. 8.
Fairforest Academy is part of Spartanburg County School District 6 and Global Academy is authorized by the Limestone Charter Association. The two schools are about a 10-minute drive from each other, both west of the city of Spartanburg.
DPH first announced an outbreak in a Spartanburg school on Oct. 7.
On Oct. 8, it said it had waited 48 hours for parents to be notified before it released the schools where the outbreak was occurring.
After DPH named both schools, Joe Chisolm with Global Academy told The Post and Courier that his school had one case of measles and that it had “taken immediate action by individually contacting all families whose children were identified as being in close contact with the confirmed case, ensuring a controlled and compliant response.”
District 6 did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Currently, there are seven confirmed cases associated with the current outbreak in Spartanburg County since Sept. 25, DPH said, and 10 cases in the state this year.
Spartanburg County has the highest rate of religious exemptions from vaccine requirements in the state at around 6 percent, representing about 3,200 kids. The last measles outbreak in the state was 2018.
State epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said eight of the people who have gotten measles were unvaccinated.
South Carolina is now one of more than 40 states that have been home to a measles outbreak this year, with more than 1,500 cases since Sept. 30, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 92 percent were people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccinated status was unknown.