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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order adding measles to a list of communicable diseases that could require quarantine after several Afghan refugees were diagnosed with the highly contagious disease after arriving in the United States.
The action makes measles one of the diseases for which federal health authorities have the power to issue quarantine orders requiring people diagnosed with or exposed to measles self-isolate to protect the disease. public health, a White House official said in a statement.
“This measure was taken at the request of public health officials, who cited measles cases among Afghans recently arrived in the United States as well as several previous measles outbreaks in recent years,” the official added. ‘expressing on condition of anonymity.
The statement did not give details of the nature or duration of the quarantine.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), meaning it was no longer consistently present. Thirteen cases of measles were confirmed in the United States in 2020.
Flights carrying Afghan refugees to the United States have been temporarily halted due to four cases of measles, the White House announced last week.
“All Afghans who arrive must be vaccinated against measles, as well as diseases like polio and COVID-19, as a condition of remaining in the United States,” the official said.
Afghans are vaccinated at military bases overseas before flying to the United States.
Afghans who were diagnosed with measles after arriving in the United States “were housed separately in accordance with public health guidelines,” and the CDC conducted contact tracing, the official said.
Measles can be dangerous, especially for babies and young children, and pneumonia is among the possible complications, according to the CDC.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham, Will Dunham and Mark Porter)
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