Measles cases in the United States rise to 704 as the disease spreads among unvaccinated people

US health authorities confirmed 78 more cases of measles last week, urging people to get vaccinated while they fight the worst year in 25 years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday that they had confirmed 704 cases of measles on Friday, the largest number of cases in the United States in a single year since 1994 and the highest number of cases since the elimination of measles in the United States. In 2000.

Cases have been reported in 22 states this year. Most of the new cases have been reported in New York, where outbreaks occur in New York and Rockland County.

Nearly three-quarters of this year's measles cases involved unimmunized people, the CDC said. The vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella is the best way to prevent this disease, one of the most contagious in the world. Measles infects 90% of unvaccinated people who are exposed to it, according to the CDC.

"Vaccine-preventable diseases must be in history books, not in our emergency rooms," Alex Azar, secretary of health and social services, told reporters on Monday. "Vaccination is a simple, safe and effective way to protect our loved ones and neighbors from the scourge of measles, and the suffering we see today is totally preventable."

Six of the 13 epidemics were associated with closely linked religious or cultural communities, with lower vaccination rates, the CDC said. Yet, they accounted for 88% of all cases this year, highlighting the ease with which the disease can spread among unvaccinated people.

New York City health officials ordered vaccinated people earlier this month to be vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, or to be fined. They also closed a Jewish school that apparently did not provide vaccination records, as the city was trying to vaccinate people belonging to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Outside groups targeted misinformation about vaccines.

Last week, two Los Angeles universities quarantined over 700 students likely to have been exposed to measles after reporting a home in the county.

"Really, this should be an alarm bell," said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins University. "We are dealing with an illness that should have been taken off the table in the 1960s, and now in 2019, when we are planning a mission to Mars, we are dealing with it because we allow it."

Before the measles vaccine was available in 1963, almost all children had contracted the disease by the age of 15, the CDC said. Every year, approximately 400 to 500 people die, 48,000 are hospitalized and 1,000 have experienced brain swelling that can occur in people infected with measles.

Measles is still common in other parts of the world. Forty-four of the US cases this year were imported directly from other countries, including the Philippines, Ukraine and Israel, the CDC said. Almost all people who became ill did not get vaccinated.

Receiving the two recommended doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is 97% effective in measles prevention, according to the CDC. Health officials said the disease was eliminated from the United States in 2000, thanks to vaccination efforts.

However, more and more parents are refusing, some refusing to vaccinate their children. The reasons vary, but some point to false information that vaccines are causing autism. President Donald Trump has peddled this misinformation in the past, but last week he reversed the trend, saying people "must be vaccinated".

The longer the current epidemics in the country last, the greater the likelihood that measles will "pass over" in the United States, the CDC said. Outbreaks are defined as three or more cases.