White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest discussed vaccines today, after reporters quizzed him about the president’s views on parents who choose not to vaccinate their children.
Many have speculated, but now a top federal health official is confirming that the outbreak of measles traced to several Disney theme parks was likely caused by a foreign visitor or an American who had recently returned from a trip outside the country.
The measles outbreak continues to spread in California and beyond, with a case confirmed Wednesday in Fresno County. Fresno health officials say the man visited the area recently and may have had contact with county residents in public locations, including an area medical center and its maternity ward, potentially exposing babies to the extremely contagious disease.
As an outbreak of measles linked to several California Disney theme parks mounts, other states are also seeing measles appear. This week, for instance, a suburb of Chicago has announced its first case of the year.
California and California-related cases of the measles now total 87, excluding any outside the state that have no known link to the December Magic Kingdom outbreak. California Department of Public Health officials have updated the known extent of the spread that now spans seven states and Mexico.
A Costco location in Gilroy, California is one of the latest sites exposed to the measles outbreak that began at Disneyland in mid-December. A measles-infected shopper visited the store while contagious, according to a Santa Clara County health official and NBC News Bay Area.
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Friday another Southern California case of measles surfaced at Santa Monica High School. The school in west Los Angeles County notified parents of all students that a freshman baseball coach had contracted the disease.
Californians are waking up to the fact that refusing to vaccinate their children endangers them. In 2014, for the first time in 12 years, less Californians claimed their beliefs disallowed immunizing their children, according to a Los Angeles Times data analysis. Health officials have stated that once the rate of non-immunization among the populace reaches 8%, an outbreak becomes more likely.
The measles outbreak in California has hit 63 cases since it surfaced in Disneyland this past December, and several new cases have now surfaced in three Bay Area counties, resulting in a potential new spread of the highly-contagious disease there.
Public health officials are raising their measles intervention alert, urging adults to consider a measles vaccine booster as California now reports 59 cases of the disease.
Two dozen unvaccinated Huntington Beach High School students have been sent home over three weeks under threat of a measles outbreak. One had actually contracted the disease.
A study of California’s Bay area and Sonoma County suggests that the most under-vaccinated children in California are the very poor–and the very smart.
An outbreak of measles thought to have originated in Anaheim’s Disneyland amusement park earlier this week has now expanded throughout Southern California, with 45 cases now confirmed in the state and an additional six cases confirmed in three other states and Mexico.
Thursday the Health and Human Services Agency of San Diego County announced ten confirmed cases of measles. Nine of the infected individuals had never received vaccinations.
Health authorities have identified seven more cases of measles traced to an outbreak at the Disney theme parks in California, bringing the number of known cases up to 26.
Nine people who visited Southern California’s Disneyland or California Adventure theme parks during a five-day period in December have contracted measles, California health officials announced Wednesday.