Measles outbreak "accelerates", health officials warn

Measles is rising. Last week, the United States recorded 90 cases, making this year's epidemic the second largest in more than two decades.

So far this year, the United States has confirmed 555 cases of measles, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday. That's 50% more than the total number registered last year, although we only have a quarter of the way up in 2019.

And the virus does not slow down.

"The number of cases is accelerating," says Dr. Amanda Cohn, CDC Senior Vaccine Advisor. "We are on track to have one of the highest numbers of measles cases reported since the elimination of the disease by the year 2000.

The majority of new cases are linked to an outbreak in New York and New York, Cohn said.

"It's a very important epidemic," she says. "These cases have been imported from other countries, but because of low immunization coverage in these communities, measles is spreading widely in these communities."

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Last week, New York City declared a public health emergency in an ultra-Orthodox community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the New York City Department of Health forced parents to vaccinate their children for lack of a fine of USD 1,000 will be imposed.

The CDC has reported four other outbreak locations in the United States: Clark County, Washington; Oakland County, Michigan; two counties of New Jersey; and a handful of counties across California.

Health officials say the surge has two main causes: more international travel and lower vaccination rates.

Several countries around the world are currently experiencing mbadive measles outbreaks. Madagascar has recorded more than 100,000 cases since autumn, with more than 1,200 deaths. Ukraine has registered about 37,000 cases this year. And the European Union has about a thousand cases a month.

Globally, the World Health Organization has reported that the number of measles cases in the first quarter of 2019 has almost quadrupled from what was reported at the same time last year.

More and more American families are bringing measles home after their trip abroad, Cohn said. And once the disease has appeared in the United States, it has a better chance of introducing it because vaccination rates have dropped in some places below 93 to 95%, the threshold required to protect the entire community. .

"When you make the decision not to vaccinate your child, know that you are also making this decision for the people around him," Herminia Palacio, deputy mayor of Health and Social Services, told NPRIN on Wednesday. , in New York City.

Measles can be an extremely serious disease. About 25% of infected children are hospitalized. About 10% of children develop ear infections that can cause permanent damage to hearing. In about 1 in 1,000 cases, the infection becomes a life-threatening condition. In these cases, the virus moves into the brain, causing encephalitis and convulsions. Children can be left deaf, blind or mentally retarded – if they recover.

Before the development of the measles vaccine in the 1960s, the United States recorded nearly half a million cases each year, says the CDC. About 48,000 children have been hospitalized and about 500 people die each year.

"We eliminated measles in our country in 2000, and … I think we have eliminated the memory of this virus," said Dr. Paul Offit, of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, in the # 39th edition of the NPR weekend. "People do not remember how bad it could make you sick."

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