The number of measles cases in the United States reached a record-setting 704 for the year last week, the greatest number of cases in 25 years, health officials said on Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that as of April 29, 704 measles cases have been confirmed in 22 US states since the start of the year.
That was a jump of 78 cases from the previous week, it said. Measles were declared eliminated in the US in 2000 but this year has seen the greatest number of confirmed cases since 1994. Three percent of the measles cases developed pneumonia, while nine percent were serious enough to require hospitalization, said CDC director Robert Redfield.
"At this time, there has been no death," Redfield said. There were 17 measles outbreaks in 2018, but most of the cases were from outbreaks in New York state, New York City, and New Jersey - mainly among unvaccinated members of Orthodox Jewish communities, the CDC said.
"Families are being targeted with inaccurate and misleading information about vaccines," said Nancy Messonnier, head of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. According to the CDC, 94 percent of children entering kindergarten in the United States in 2017 had received their two doses of the MMR vaccine to protect them from mumps, measles and rubella.
Comments
Comments are closed.