ICYMI: More Measles Cases In Michigan

It was announced Wednesday that Michigan has seen 43 cases of the measles in 2019, up from 40 on Tuesday.

Nearly a hundred more measles cases have been reported in the United States since the last time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its numbers for 2019.

According to the CDC, through April 11, there have been 555 measles cases reported in 20 states in 2019. Just a week earlier, the CDC reported that through April 4, 2019, there were 465 measles cases reported in the country.

In Michigan, 42 measles cases have been reported in 2019. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said in a tweet "MDHHS has confirmed two new measles cases in Southeast Michigan, bringing the state total to 42 for 2019. The newly confirmed cases are in Oakland County and the City of Detroit. One of the cases had exposure locations in Kent and Ingham counties."

See more on Patch:

• Measles Outbreak Reduced To 39 Cases In Michigan
• New Case Of Measles Identified In Michigan

The CDC is monitoring five other measles outbreaks in the following areas:

• Rockland County, New York
• New York City
• Washington
• New Jersey
• Butte County, California

The outbreaks the CDC is monitoring are linked to travelers who brought back the disease from other countries like Israel, Ukraine and the Philippines.

Measles cases in just the first quarter of 2019 are fast approaching the 2014 figure, when the highest number of cases was recorded over the past 10 years. In the entirety of 2014, the CDC says there were 667 measles cases.

To combat the increase in measles cases, local health officials have been taking action to prevent the further spread of the highly contagious but completely preventable disease. In New York City, officials have said that in certain zip codes where the outbreak is occurring, parents should not send their unvaccinated children to school until the outbreak is over. Last week, New York City health officials mandated that every person in the designated zip codes get a vaccine within 48 hours or face a $1,000 fine. An effort by city officials to educate residents in the affected zip codes has resulted in over 7,000 people receiving the MMR vaccine as of March.

Officials in Rockland County, New York, have also announced stepped up efforts to fight the spread of measles.

The outbreak in Michigan has been linked to New York City, CNN reported on Tuesday. According to CNN, a man who traveled from New York to southeast Michigan didn’t know that he was contagious and all 38 other cases in southeast Michigan have been linked to him.

The states that have reported measles cases to the CDC in 2019 are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington.

The majority of people who get measles are unvaccinated and the disease can spread when it reaches a community where groups of people haven’t received the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR vaccine, according to the CDC. The agency says more measles cases can occur if there’s an increase in the number of travelers to the United States who have measles or if the disease spreads within pockets of unvaccinated communities.

Measles spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The CDC says two doses of the MMR vaccine are about 97 percent effective in preventing measles. One dose of the vaccine is 93 percent effective in preventing measles, the agency said.

You can read more about measles via the CDC here.

Reporting and writing from Patch editors Anna Quinn and Lanning Taliaferro was used in this report.