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(Resumed with CDC warning against misinformation about vaccines, adds HHS Secretary's comment, background)
By Gabriella Borter
NEW YORK, April 29 (Reuters) – The number of measles cases in the United States has reached a 25-year high, driven by the spread of misinformation about the vaccine that can prevent the disease, announced Monday. federal health officials.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 704 cases as of April 26, an increase of 1.3% from the last count of 695 reported Wednesday. The vast majority of cases have occurred in children who have not received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which confers immunity to the disease, officials said.
"The suffering we are seeing today is totally preventable," said US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on Monday. "We know that vaccines are safe because they are among the most studied medical products we have."
A vocal fringe of American parents refuses to vaccinate their children, convinced, contrary to scientific evidence, that their ingredients can cause autism or other disorders.
Some 22 states have reported cases of extremely contagious and sometimes fatal diseases. None of the victims of the recent epidemic died, but 3% contracted pneumonia and 9% were hospitalized due to complications of the disease, CDC director Robert Redfield said Monday.
US President Donald Trump urged Americans last week to be vaccinated to prevent the spread of measles. He changed his mind about the remarks he made in 2014 when he had expressed doubts about giving children the vaccine doses recommended by the government.
"Vaccinations are so important, that's really what's happening now," Trump said Friday.
The current outbreak is concentrated in New York, where officials said more than 390 cases had been recorded since October, mostly among children of Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn. Most of the recent cases have occurred in New York and Los Angeles, officials said Monday.
The national epidemic has intensified from 82 people in 2018 and more than 40 people in 2019 have brought measles to the United States from other countries, most often to Ukraine, Israel and the United States. Philippines, announced federal officials.
Although the virus was eliminated from the country in 2000, which means that it was no longer present all year, epidemics still occur through the medium of travelers coming from where measles is still common, says the CDC.
(Report by Gabriella Borter, edited by Scott Malone, Tom Brown and Bill Berkrot)
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