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The number of US measles infections has surged to the highest level since 1992, causing 162 hospitalisations and three deaths this year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the start of the year, there have been 1,288 confirmed cases nationally though July 8, the highest since 1992, when there were 2,126 cases in the whole year.
About one-third of the cases have been in one west Texas county. The state’s health authority said on Tuesday there had been 753 cases in Texas since January and two children had died. The children were not vaccinated and had no known underlying conditions, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.
Measles was eliminated in the US in 2000, the CDC has said, meaning the disease is not spreading in the country and new infections are typically contracted abroad. The US usually records less than 100 cases a year.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that is transmitted by coughing or sneezing. People who are not vaccinated and come into contact with the virus have a 90 per cent chance of catching measles, according to the CDC.
US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr visited west Texas in April to raise awareness about the measles outbreak. His agency has encouraged people to get vaccinated against the virus.
Kennedy, however, has also raised concerns that children in the US may be getting too many vaccines. “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” he said in a March statement about the outbreak.
All American states require children to receive a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to attend school, according to the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. But certain religious communities have tried to skirt the rules. The west Texas outbreak started in a Mennonite community where there have been low vaccination rates and children are more likely to be homeschooled.
In 2019, New York City suffered a sharp increase in measles cases, particularly in the Hasidic Jewish neighbourhood in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. While rabbis have said there is no religious reason not to be vaccinated against measles, there have been claims that vaccines are not kosher.
Research published in 1998 has also fuelled fears that the vaccines cause autism, but it has been discredited and widely disproved.
