Pennsylvania will accept help from a federal "disease detective" for its measles outbreak while demanding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count the state's measles deaths, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. "By not acknowledging the deaths, the CDC obscures the seriousness of this disease and the toll of measles across the U.S," state Health Secretary Debra Bogen wrote in a Friday letter to CDC Director Erica Schwartz, according to the Inquirer.

The state has confirmed five measles deaths and is looking into a sixth, but the CDC's national dashboard lists only two deaths and does not say where they happened, the Inquirer reported. Bogen wrote that the CDC is creating "unnecessary and harmful distrust between state and federal agencies," the Inquirer reported. She asked why it has taken so long for the agency to post the deaths.

The CDC will send an officer from its Epi-Aid program on Monday, October 19, after the state filed a formal request on October 7, the Inquirer reported. Health and Human Services officials did not immediately respond to the Inquirer's request for comment.

The help comes amid a feud between Governor Josh Shapiro and US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, the Inquirer reported. Speaking at a conference on health care worker shortages on Thursday, Kennedy said the state had finally asked for aid, CBS 21 reported. "They were politicizing the outbreak there," Kennedy said, according to CBS 21. "The people of Pennsylvania suffered." Kennedy has also suggested that Shapiro's staff "fabricated" at least one of the state's reported deaths, the Inquirer reported.

On Friday, Shapiro called Kennedy a "grifter" who "continues to sow doubt, continues to lie about what's happening here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and continues to play games," the Inquirer reported. A Shapiro spokesperson said in a statement that Kennedy "continues to undermine science and spread misinformation about vaccines," CBS 21 reported.

Pennsylvania has logged 1,260 measles cases this year, 121 of them in the last week, across 43 of its 67 counties, the Inquirer reported. Lancaster County has 452 cases. About 300 state health workers, including 60 "disease detectives," are responding, and providers have doubled their usual number of measles, mumps and rubella shots, the Inquirer reported.

What we know: Pennsylvania has 1,260 measles cases and five confirmed deaths, and a CDC expert is due Monday.
What we don't: Whether the CDC will add Pennsylvania's deaths to its national count.