Measles Outbreak: Confirmed In 25 Other States As Well As NY

You may have been surprised by the measles outbreak in Rockland County and Brooklyn. Many considered measles a childhood disease that was all but wiped out by 2000 due to widespread vaccination — but it is making a comeback worldwide.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that 220 cases of measles have been confirmed in 26 states and the District of Columbia. The public health agency’s report covered cases reported with local and state health departments as of Nov. 3, and compares to 120 cases in the United States in all of last year.

More than half all the measles cases in the country are in New York.

Related: Measles Outbreak 2018: 88 Cases In Rockland, 34 In Brooklyn

In addition to New York, the other states are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia.

At least 15 measles outbreaks — three or more linked cases — have been reported so far in 2018.

To get an idea of how highly contagious the measles virus is, an un-vaccinated or -immune person who shares close space with an infected person who sneezes or coughs has a 90 percent chance of contracting the illness. The measles virus lives in the nose and throat mucous of an infected person.

The virus is hearty, and can live for up to two hours in an airspace where an infected person coughed or sneezed. And people who have measles can spread it from four days before a rash appears to four days after it has cleared.

Globally, measles cases saw a 30 percent uptick in 2017 and killed an estimated 110,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

The main reason for the increase in Europe, where 41,000 people were infected in the first six months of 2018, was the refusal by parents to have their children vaccinated, the global health agency said.

The CDC said the rise in measles in the United States can be traced to outbreaks in countries to which Americans often travel — including England, France, Germany, India, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Also, the agency said, measles is spreading in the United States in communities with unvaccinated people. For example: In 2017, 75 people were sickened in a Somali-American community in Minneapolis with poor vaccination coverage. A multi-state measles outbreak in 2015 — 147 cases — was tracked to an amusement park in California and further back to a large measles outbreak in the Philippines in 2014. Unvaccinated Amish communities in Ohio were disproportionately sickened in a 2014 outbreak associated with the outbreak traced to the Philippines.

Measles can be prevented with vaccination. While a 1978 goal by the CDC to eliminate measles from the country by 1982 fell short, widespread vaccination programs caused the agency to declare measles eliminated in the United States by 2000.

Some parents refuse to vaccinate their children amid incorrect claims around the world linking the vaccines to autism, but the CDC and global health agencies like the World Health Organization recommend that children one year old and over receive two doses of measles-rubella or measles-mumps rubella.

In Rockland, as the outbreak worsened, officials began recommending that children as young as six months start the vaccination process. They also warned that people born before 1957, who have always been considered immune, could get at least a mild case of measles if exposed in this outbreak.

Rockland health officials have placed restrictions on schools in the geographic center of the outbreak: Monsey, Spring Valley and New Square. Un- or under-vaccinated students may not attend any schools where the vaccination rate is lower than 80 percent until 21 days after the last confirmed case in the county. Officials said that could be months away.

Photo via Shutterstock

SEE ALSO:

• Measles Outbreak: 88 Cases In Rockland, 34 In Brooklyn
• Measles Exposure In Rockland County, Newark Airport
• After Recent Measles Scare, Rockland Offers Residents Free Vaccine
• Measles Outbreak: 20 Cases; Unvaccinated Kids Must Stay Home
• Measles Outbreak Worsens; More Restrictions In Rockland