OLYMPIA — A state Health Department spokesman said Thursday the Lower Elwha Health Clinic was where a 5-year-old girl contracted the case of measles that resulted in quarantining some students at Olympic Christian School.
He identified the clinic after learning that the Peninsula Daily News had erroneously reported that the girl was exposed at Peninsula Children’s Clinic, 902 E. Caroline St., Port Angeles.
Paul Throne, manager for health promotion and communication in the Office of Immunization, said it was incorrect that the girl had been exposed there.
Dr. Madeline Harrington of Peninsula Children’s Clinic said the PDN article was “completely not true. It was another clinic.”
Throne said the clinic where the child was exposed was the Lower Elwha Health Clinic, 243511 W. U.S. Highway 101, Port Angeles.
He said the child “shared air” there with a 52-year-old Port Angeles man diagnosed Feb. 1 with measles.
The measles virus can linger in the air up to two hours after someone with the disease has coughed or sneezed.
Iva Burks, health and human services director of Clallam County, confirmed Thursday that the child was exposed at the Lower Elwha Health Clinic.
On Wednesday, Throne had told the PDN that the 5-year-old “was going along with a family to the waiting room at the clinic” where the man had visited about an hour earlier.
He did not name the clinic.
Last week, Clallam County health authorities said the girl had visited Peninsula Children’s Clinic while she was contagious.
The people in the waiting room when she was there were contacted and, if they were not immune, were vaccinated or otherwise treated, according to Dr. Tom Locke, Clallam County deputy public health officer and public health officer for Jefferson County.
The girl was a kindergarten student at Olympic Christian School, 43 O’Brien Road, Port Angeles.
Public health officials said she could have been contagious Feb. 6 and exposed other students to the disease.
The girl has been quarantined, and her schoolmates who have not been vaccinated have been told to remain at home until Feb. 27.
Dr. Joel Yelland, director of the Lower Elwha Tribal Health Clinic, was unavailable for comment Thursday.
However, Darcey Hodges, the tribe’s emergency management coordinator, offered to respond to written questions from the PDN about the measles contact.
By late afternoon, the newspaper had not received answers to its questions that included what other people might have been in the waiting room with the 52-year-old man, if the clinic diagnosed more measles cases, if it had set up triage procedures to keep possible cases from contact with other patients and if it would offer special measles vaccination clinics.
________
Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
