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Spike in Measles Cases Reported by U.S. Health Officials
The total number of reported cases of measles in U.S. this year is around three folds more than the annual average, health officials reported.
Federal health officials in their report also highlighted that the threat is continuing even after 50 years of the invention of the vaccine. In 2013 there have been 175 reported cases of measles. The typical national average is only about 60 cases per year.
Although the homegrown measles were eliminated in the country in 2000 itself by the diseases keeps coming via people who travelled abroad.
Of the total 175 cases, 172 of them were patients who were infected overseas or caught the disease from the one who travelled abroad. Sources of the remaining infection remain unclear.
“A measles outbreak anywhere is a risk everywhere,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said according to Washington Post. “The steady arrival of measles in the United States is a constant reminder that deadly diseases are testing our health security every day.”
This year, 58 cases of measles in Brooklyn were linked by CDC to an unvaccinated 17 year-old who travelled to London. Another 23 cases in North Carolina this year were linked to an unvaccinated resident who went on a three-month visit to India.
In the report, CDC mentioned that 158,000 people died world wide every year because of measles.
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