Brooklyn Measles Outbreak Spikes At 121 Cases, Officials Say

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK -- Measles continues to spread across the borough with more than 120 people, mostly children, reported sick.

A Measles outbreak in Williamsburg and Borough Park's Orthodox Jewish community has left 108 children and 13 adults sick with the potentially fatal disease, the Health Department reported Thursday.

Twenty-one new cases stem from one unidentified Williamsburg yeshiva that did not comply with city's exclusion order, which mandated unvaccinated children with symptoms not be allowed to go to schools, officials said.

Eight people have been hospitalized and one child was rushed to the Intensive care unit since October, when the Health Department first reported the outbreak.

Health officials source the Measles outbreak to trips to Israel, which is currently suffering from a large outbreak, as well as the U.K. and the Ukraine.

Measles, highly contagious, can lead to pneumonia, brain damage and death, but is preventable with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

More than 7,000 people have received the MMR vaccine since the Health Department mounted a campaign to educate Brooklyn residents about the disease, officials said.