More than 500 of the 704 people sickened in 22 states were not vaccinated.
A poster from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health lists the symptoms of measles. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)
At least 704 people in the United States have been
sickened this year by measles, a highly contagious and potentially
life-threatening disease, according to a report released
Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the
greatest number of cases in a single year in 25 years and represents a
huge setback for public health after measles was declared eliminated in
the United States in 2000. More than 500 of the people infected in 22
states were not vaccinated. Sixty-six people have been hospitalized,
including 24 who had pneumonia. More than one-third of the cases are
children younger than 5.
The biggest and longest-lasting outbreaks are in New York’s Rockland County and Brooklyn, centered in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, where misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has spread, officials said.
Thirteen outbreaks have been reported in 2019, accounting for 663 cases,
or 94 percent of all cases. The CDC defines an outbreak as three or
more cases. Half of those outbreaks were associated with close-knit religious or cultural communities that were undervaccinated, accounting for 88 percent of all cases.
In response to the record number of cases this year, New York City has imposed a mandatory vaccination order,
and Rockland County has required that anyone with measles avoid public
spaces or face a $2,000-a-day fine. On Monday, New York city officials
said it had closed two schools, and 57 individuals have received
summonses for violating the emergency order; they face a $1,000 penalty
if the summons is upheld, and a $2,000 fine if they don’t appear at a
hearing or respond to the summons.
In California, hundreds of college students were quarantined last week
after one student with measles attended classes on three days while
contagious at the University of California at Los Angeles, and another
contagious person spent hours at a library at California State
University Los Angeles. As of early Monday, 343 students and employees
remained under quarantine and have been told to stay home and avoid
contact with others as much as possible.
The rare and extreme measures reflect the
seriousness of this year’s outbreaks. In a statement Monday, Health and
Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, “We have come a long way in
fighting infectious diseases in America, but we risk backsliding and
seeing our families, neighbors, and communities needlessly suffer from
preventable diseases.”
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