Rockland Officials Stopped 2 With Measles From Flying

NEW CITY, NY — The Rockland County Department of Health contacted the Centers for Disease Control to ask that two people be added to the Federal Do Not Board list. The county has confirmed about 100 cases of measles in the past two months, and its total for the six-month outbreak now stands at 250.

The news of Rockland's request to the federal government was first reported by the Washington Post.

Eight individuals have been considered for the list so far this year, and all of them were related to the nationwide measles outbreak. In addition to Rockland, consultations were requested by officials in New York City, California, Illinois, Oklahoma and Washington, according to CNN.

"These requests could only be made for people with confirmed cases of measles," said county spokesman John Lyon. "The two individuals we requested be added to the list had been planning to travel to Israel for the Passover holiday. Adding them to the list served as an effective deterrent; they did not travel."

The CDC established the Do Not Board list in June 2007, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, to prevent commercial air travel by people who are contagious with certain diseases of public health concern, such as infectious tuberculosis and measles. A person on the Do Not Board list is prevented from obtaining a boarding pass for any flight into, out of, or within the United States. The Transportation Security Administration enforces this list for commercial air travel, according to the CDC website.

So far this year, as of May 24, 940 individual cases of measles have been confirmed in 26 states, according to the CDC. More than half — 632 — have been in Rockland County, Brooklyn and Queens.

This is the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since all of 1994 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.

The measles virus is so highly contagious that 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.

SEE ALSO: Rockland Renews Measles State Of Emergency

Editor's Note: The disease status of the two people stopped in Rockland was incorrect in the original version of this report. Patch regrets the error.