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NEW YORK / BANGALORE, INDIA – The worst outbreak of measles in the United States in a quarter of a century spread to Idaho and Virginia last week, while public health authorities announced Monday 41 new cases of this highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease.
The United States recorded 1,022 cases of illness this year on June 6, during an epidemic attributed to misinformation about vaccines, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced.
The 2019 epidemic, which affected 28 states, is the worst since 1992, when 2,126 cases were recorded.
Federal health officials attribute this year's epidemic to American parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. Unlike scientific evidence, these parents believe that the ingredients of the vaccine can cause autism.
"We can not say it enough: vaccines are a safe and extremely effective public health tool that can prevent this disease and end the current epidemic," said the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, in a statement last week.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, which means that there has been no continuous transmission of the disease for one year. Nevertheless, cases of viruses occur and spread through travelers from countries where measles is common.
CDC officials warned that the country was at risk of losing its measles elimination status if the ongoing outbreak, which began in October 2018 in New York, lasted until October 2019.
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