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An animated explanation of the measles.
Chris Brown, [email protected]

With measles outbreaks at our doorstep, North Jersey medical practitioners are fielding calls from anxious patients and urging everyone to vaccinate their children against highly contagious illness.

"Said Dr. Suraj Saggar, Chief of Infectious Disease at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. "This is extremely contagious." We are doing our best to educate the public and let them know that they should be vaccinated. "

As of Tuesday morning, there were 11 confirmed cases and an additional seven cases that are under investigation in Ocean County, said the Ocean County Health Department.

There have been confirmed cases of measles in Rockland County, New York, where the Department of Health has been offering free measles vaccines to 6 months of age and older residents.

In addition, measles has been diagnosed in 17 children in the many Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Health officials have reported an increased demand for vaccinations.

Thus far, no cases have been reported in Bergen or Passaic counties, but there is growing concern because of proximity and intermingling with other affected communities in Lakewood and Rockland County. Both also have large Orthodox Jewish populations.

"Measles is highly transmissible," said Dr. Aryeh Baer, ​​a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Hackensack University Medical Center. He noted that people should take precautions, because one in every 1,000 people who get measles die from it.

"Immunization provides lifelong immunity, as a society, we should be helping to make sure everyone else is covered," he said.

Bergen County has a higher-than-average rate of vaccine exemptions among schoolchildren. For the 2017-18 school year, combined 1,772 children in public and private schools were not fully vaccinated because of medical or religious exemptions, state data show.

Several prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel and Brooklyn – including Rabbi David Niederman, Hasidic Rabbi and President of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn – have urged followers to vaccinate their children, and some schools and synagogues have said that only those who are vaccinated may wait.

Measles is transmitted by sneezing and coughing and contacted by an infected person, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include a high fever and rash, a runny nose, and red runny eyes. In some cases, the virus can lead to serious impairment or death.

Most people born after 1957 received a measles vaccine, but some of them did not come back to a country where it was not routinely done.

Because of gaps in immunization, various regions of the world have been affected by measles outbreaks, said the World Health Organization, which found that the number of people sickened with the virus in 2018 has exceeded the 2017 total.

The World Health Organization recommends that adults or adolescents be immunosuppressed by measles immunization.

The recent outbreaks in Lakewood, New York City and Rockland County are linked to people who traveled abroad. In Rockland County, the boxes have spread beyond the Orthodox community where they originated.

A sick child resting at home. (Photo: tatyana_tomsickova, Getty Images / iStockphoto)

Outbreaks have been reported in this year, including California, Florida, Nevada and Texas. There has been a measles outbreak in Europe.

The Weisinger of Teaneck, a founder of the Orthodox Jewish Nurses Association, has worked in Bergen County over the past 18 years, said she said in Bergen County.

"We have a large population of Rockland County students in our schools," she said, adding that she wants to go to school.

"The schools should kick out the anti-vaxxers because this puts everyone at risk," she said, explaining that religious schools are not required to accept philosophical or religious exemptions, which could place the community at risk. She hopes that all of them will not be admitted to their homes.

Dr. Maury Buchalter, a pediatrician at Tenafly Pediatrics, a practice with offices in Fort Lee, Paramus, Clifton and other locations, agreed. The problems arise, he said, when schools allow exemptions for parents who do not want to vaccinate their kids.

"As a practice, we recommend that patients do not want to be vaccinated, they do not stay here," he said. "It's a state law, People need to be vaccinated."

State law permits unvaccinated children to be excluded from schools and child-care centers during outbreaks.

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When he gets the answers from his parents, there is nothing to worry about.

Siggy Berger, a social worker and mother of 11 who lives in Passaic, said in the foreground.

"People have stopped shopping in Monsey [New York] because they are afraid, "she said, referring to those who are kosher food." "Some are fearful of going to Lakewood."

In her own family, she is concerned about her life, but she is concerned about her son, who has a lower immunity due to a disability.

Everyone who knows it is aware of anti-vaxxers, she said, adding: "I'm so against people who do not vaccinate, because they hurt the rest of us."

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