About 12 US States Grappling With Measles Says CDC

Almost a couple of decades after measles was completely eradicated from United States it has come back with a vengeance and according to recent data of CDCP and within ten week it has emerged in 12 states. Between Jan 1 and March 7 of this year CDC has received details of 228 measles cases which are more than half of those reported in entire 2018 which had only 372 cases in all. These outbreaks with three or more cases have been reported from Texas, Illinois, Rockland County in New York, Washington and California. The disease has resurfaced in several developed countries besides US as parents are refusing to vaccinate their children.

Measles is a highly contagious disease that infects 90% of people that are unvaccinated and are exposed to sick individuals. Measles can be recognized by rashes on the body and virus spreads through a sick person coughing and sneezing in the same region as others. An individual could be infected for days before symptoms appear and CDC stated that outbreaks in US are linked to people that traveled in from Israel and Ukraine which is facing large outbreaks of the disease.

As per data of New York City’s Health department the 133 confirmed measles cases in its region is limited to Orthodox Jewish community some of whom had recently travelled to Israel. As the disease has a tendency to spread quickly in places where people are not vaccinated, government is planning to pursue making mumps, measles and rubella vaccine (MMR) mandatory. Recent studies have also shown that the fear about MMR causing autism is false and an exhaustive study of 650,000 children carried out between 1999 and 2010 revealed that there is no scientific link between the vaccine and autism. Public health officials are trying their utmost to convince parents and anti-vaccination campaigners that these vaccines are safe and can save children.