Six New Yorkers became infected with measles last week, creating a bit of a health scare in parts of Brooklyn.
The city’s Health Department, which is monitoring the situation closely, said the cases are mostly contained within a small cluster in the Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg.
Here’s what you need to know.
How widespread is this?
“We know that the main child who was affected was a child who was unvaccinated and traveled to an area in Israel that was undergoing a measles outbreak,” said the department’s acting commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot.
It’s very likely that the child brought it back and it then spread to five other children — from 11-months-old to 4-years-old — in the Brooklyn community.
“The problem is that we still have folks who refuse to get their children vaccinated,” Dr. Barbot said, “and that has consequences.”
Five of the infected were unvaccinated, and one was too young to have been vaccinated. (In New York City, Dr. Barbot added, nearly 99 percent of school-aged children are vaccinated.)
How contagious are the measles?
Highly.
“Typically, it is transmitted by airborne particles, droplets or direct contact,” Dr. Barbot said, “so it could be transmitted as easily as you being in a room with someone who has measles and being close to them, but not having to touch them.”
What are the symptoms?
Dr. Barbot said that measles usually “presents with a viral illness type of condition where an individual can have a cough, runny eyes, fever and then the typical rash that starts at the head and then progresses downward and also includes the palm and the sole.”
It can last several days.
“The reason why we’re so concerned,” she said, “is because there can be health consequences, including things like pneumonia and things like inflammation of the tissues and the brain.”
Are children more susceptible than adults?
Nope. “It can affect anybody,” Dr. Barbot said. “The issue here is vaccination status.”
“If someone is exposed to measles and they are not vaccinated, we exclude them from school for 21 days after the last exposure to make sure that they themselves don’t develop the measles and then affect yet another crop of children,” she added. “And this holds true in the event that an adult gets exposed.”
Is there a measles season like flu season?
“There’s no real seasonality to measles the way that there is for influenza,” Dr. Barbot. said. The beginning of flu season will not exacerbate the measles outbreak.