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For months, the city of New York has been fighting a measles epidemic in the Orthodox Jewish community. The mayor finally declared April 9 a public health emergency, as measles continues to spread among unvaccinated children. Parents who refuse to vaccinate must face heavy fines.
Brooklyn is a borough of New York known for its ultra-orthodox Jewish community very united. Women wear long, modest dresses, and men are recognizable by the broad-brimmed hat and the long black coat.
Mandatory vaccine
About 100,000 orthodox Jews live in Brooklyn. It is in this community where measles has spread since an unvaccinated child brought the virus back during a visit to Israel last October. The inability to contain the outbreak has prompted Mayor Bill de Blasio to declare a public health emergency.
"We are in a situation where children are in danger," de Blasio said.
De Blasio ordered compulsory vaccinations in Orthodox neighborhoods. Unvaccinated children will not be allowed to go to school and their parents may face heavy fines.
WATCH: Anti-vaccine parents fuel the worst measles outbreak in 30 years
Their religion does not ban vaccination, and Dr Oxiris Barbot, city commissioner, said the duration of this outbreak was alarming.
"We have worked closely with religious leaders and schools in the community to ensure that vulnerable people are safe during this epidemic and to challenge the dangerous misinformation spread by a group of anti-vaxxers," she said. declared.
Schools honor the urgency
The ParCare Community Health Network addresses orthodox families. Gary Schlesinger is its managing director. He told VOA that the private religious schools attended by these children would respect the terms of the emergency declaration.
"They were very clear: they will deny unequivocally any parent who does not vaccinate their children," he said.
According to Schlesinger, about 100 families are strongly opposed to vaccines because they mistakenly believe that vaccines can cause autism or even death. These are some of the same beliefs as those of other secular communities.
Safe vaccine
Dr. Camille Sabella, of the Cleveland Clinic, said that several studies involving hundreds of thousands of children proved that the measles vaccine was safe.
"It's really an incredibly safe vaccine. We have been using it since the 1960s in our country and it has an outstanding safety record, "he said.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been more than 400 measles cases in 19 states this year alone.
Health officials are concerned that measles outbreaks may also indicate that children are not vaccinated against other deadly diseases.
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