The Hawaiʻi State Department of Health has confirmed to HPR that there is a second presumptive case of measles in a Hawaiʻi resident.
The individual is a household contact of the unvaccinated 5-year-old child whose measles case was confirmed earlier this week. The DOH said this adult traveled out of state and is unavailable for confirmation testing. The child has since fully recovered, according to the DOH.
A distinguished health communications researcher was set to speak Friday at the University of Hawai’i. Kasisomayajula “Vish” Viswanath is a professor of health communications at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Viswanath spoke to The Conversation about the reemergence of measles across the country and in Hawaiʻi.
“What is different this time around is that MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination rates have been falling, primarily because of COVID, and what we are seeing now is a consequence of that,” he said. “When the vaccination rates fall below a certain rate, then herd immunity is eroded."
In 2024, Viswanath led a team that put together a National Academics report on understanding and addressing misinformation about science.
"What we found in the report is people are not going out there to look for misinformation," Viswanath said. "People are going out there to look for information, and it just so happens, if misinformation is more prominently available, then they're exposed to it. So as public health figures, as media personnel, reporters, and others, as academics, as researchers, the idea is, number one, increase the supply of correct information. We cannot eliminate misinformation, but we can increase the supply to correct information."
Viswanath will give the keynote address at the open house for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Communications and Information tonight.
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 11, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
