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REUTERS: The United States has registered 971 cases of measles in the first five months of 2019, exceeding the total for one year since 1992, when the disease was declared eradicated in the country, federal officials said Thursday.
The United States said measles had been eradicated from the country in 2000, but officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Thursday that the country was at risk of losing measles elimination status. .
There was a total of 963 cases of measles in the United States in 1992, the CDC said in a statement.
The disease is especially prevalent among school-aged children whose parents have refused to be vaccinated.
Public health officials attribute this upsurge to spreading misinformation about vaccines. A vocal fringe of parents opposes vaccines, convinced, contrary to scientific studies, that their ingredients can cause autism.
"Measles is preventable and the way to end this epidemic is to make sure that all children and adults who can get vaccinated are," said CDC director Robert Redfield in a statement.
"Again, I want to rebadure parents that vaccines are safe, they do not cause autism," Redfield said.
When measles was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000, this meant that the virus was no longer present throughout the year, although outbreaks still occurred via travelers in the United States. from countries where measles is common.
Communities in the Brooklyn Borough of New York and Rockland County, a region of the state of New York located about 50 km north of Manhattan, are facing measles outbreaks that have been going on since then. almost eight months.
Other cases of measles occurred in Oklahoma and Washington state.
Decades ago, before measles vaccine was widely used, about 3 to 4 million people a year became ill in the United States with 400 to 500 deaths a year.
(Report by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru, edited by Richard Chang and Diane Craft)
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