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These photos from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the measles rash.

Pennsylvania health officials are urging people who haven't been vaccinated against measles to get vaccinated, especially those who may have been exposed to a sick Shippensburg-area child at several public locations.



People who come down with the highly contagious illness typically get sick one to two weeks after exposure. But vaccination can protect them if given within three days of exposure, state health officials said.



The state health department was finalizing details of providing free vaccine in the affected area in western Cumberland County.

UPDATE: Measles vaccine clinics underway

Measles is considered one of the most dangerous childhood illnesses and in rare cases leads to death. It can also strike adults, causing problems such as miscarriage in pregnant women.

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Most Americans are immune to measles because they received a vaccine known as MMR during infancy and again in early childhood. People who have had measles also are immune.

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The recent outbreak that has grown to about 100 people in about a dozen states began in California and is being blamed on communities of people who don't believe in vaccination. No deaths have been reported, but children sometimes die of measles complications, which can include pneumonia.



The state health department said these people are at risk of getting the measles:





Infants under a year old who are too young to have received the MMR vaccine;

People who have refused vaccination;

People from parts of the world with low vaccination rates;

People vaccinated from 1963 to 1967 with an inactivated vaccine and who haven't been revaccinated;

People born after 1957 who received only one dose of the MMR vaccine.

The first dose of MMR is typically given to children between the ages of 12 and 15 months.

Measles symptoms include high fever, runny nose, watery eyes, coughing, and a raised red rash that starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body.

People are contagious from four days before their rash begins until four days after it ends. Measles is often spread through coughing and can live on surfaces for several hours. Unvaccinated people can become infected by entering a room where an infected person had been.

who had been at a Shippensburg Walmart on Saturday night, and who had been at the Shippensburg Urgent Care Center or the Chambersburg Hospital emergency department late Monday night or early Tuesday.