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NEW YORK – A New York county that has declared a state of emergency following a measles outbreak is on track after administering hundreds of vaccines in two days, the district chief said Friday. American.
In the emergency, Rockland County banned unvaccinated minors from visiting public places to prevent the spread of the disease once eliminated.
Scheduled for 30 days starting Wednesday at midnight, the emergency comes amid an upsurge in the number of measles cases in the United States, linked to an anti-vaccination move.
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"We have seen more than 500 (new vaccines) in the past few days," Rockland County Chief Ed Day told CNBC television.
"People just understand that we are serious about it," said Day, whose district is located 40 kilometers north of downtown New York.
"We believe we are on the right track to achieve at least a 93% vaccination rate from the first vaccine", close to the level deemed necessary to end the epidemic.
Signs about measles and measles vaccine are posted at the Rockland County Health Department in Pomona, New York, March 27, 2019 (AP Photo / Seth Wenig)
Although measles was declared officially eliminated from the United States in 2000, epidemics have occurred in five states this year, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The epidemics are linked to travelers who have reported the disease from other countries such as Israel, and the majority of people who have caught measles have not been vaccinated, the CDC said.
The World Health Organization warned that the growing anti-vaccine movement in the richest countries was one of the top ten threats to health.
The phenomenon has adherents in several Western countries, including Britain and France, but is particularly visible in the United States.
Between January 1 and March 21, there were 314 cases of measles in the United States, the CDC announced.
Rockland County, with a population of more than 300,000, recorded 157 cases on Friday.
Rockland County Executive Day (screenshot: YouTube)
Despite major vaccination campaigns since the start of the epidemic in October, about 27 percent of miners aged 1 to 18 in the county have not been vaccinated, Day said earlier in the week.
The most affected neighborhoods are neighborhoods with a high Jewish Orthodox population, where many oppose vaccines for religious reasons.
Many vaccines are theoretically mandatory for children to go to school in the United States. But 47 states out of 50 allow exemptions for religious, moral or personal reasons.
In January, the state of Washington, in the north-west of the country, declared a state of emergency on a measles epidemic, an airborne infection that causes fever, coughs and skin rashes that can be fatal in rare cases.
Friday, Friday, called for tougher vaccination legislation in schools and said that a bill to this effect was being discussed at the state level.
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