Reuters, Los Angeles :
More than 100 people in the United States have been confirmed as infected with measles including 91 in California, most of them linked to an outbreak that began at Disneyland in December, public health officials said on Friday.
The California Department of Public Health said at least 58 of the cases of the highly infectious disease in the state have been epidemiologically linked to the Disneyland cluster. More than a dozen other cases have been confirmed in 13 other US states and in Mexico.
No deaths have been reported in connection with the outbreak, which public health officials suspect began when an infected person from outside the United States visited Disneyland in Anaheim between December 15 and December 20. The White House on Friday urged parents to heed the advice of public health officials and scientists in getting their children vaccinated.
“People should evaluate this for themselves with a bias toward good science and toward the advice of our public health professionals,” President Barack Obama’s spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. Asked whether people should be getting vaccinated, Earnest said: “That’s what the science indicates.” The measles outbreak has renewed a debate over the so-called anti-vaccination movement in which fears about potential side effects of vaccines, fueled by now-debunked research suggesting a link to autism, have led a small minority of parents to refuse to allow their children to be inoculated.
More than 100 people in the United States have been confirmed as infected with measles including 91 in California, most of them linked to an outbreak that began at Disneyland in December, public health officials said on Friday.
The California Department of Public Health said at least 58 of the cases of the highly infectious disease in the state have been epidemiologically linked to the Disneyland cluster. More than a dozen other cases have been confirmed in 13 other US states and in Mexico.
No deaths have been reported in connection with the outbreak, which public health officials suspect began when an infected person from outside the United States visited Disneyland in Anaheim between December 15 and December 20. The White House on Friday urged parents to heed the advice of public health officials and scientists in getting their children vaccinated.
“People should evaluate this for themselves with a bias toward good science and toward the advice of our public health professionals,” President Barack Obama’s spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. Asked whether people should be getting vaccinated, Earnest said: “That’s what the science indicates.” The measles outbreak has renewed a debate over the so-called anti-vaccination movement in which fears about potential side effects of vaccines, fueled by now-debunked research suggesting a link to autism, have led a small minority of parents to refuse to allow their children to be inoculated.
