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COURIER L 12 IFE, SEPT. 6-12, 2019
Down with measles!
Mayor Bill de Blasio declared the end of the city’s measles outbreak on Sept. 3, which swept
through Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn for almost a year. Photo by Paul Martinka
De Blasio declares end to Kings County
outbreak that started in October 2018
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Mayor Bill de Blasio declared
Brooklyn’s measles outbreak over
on Tuesday.
Hizzoner declared the end of the
epidemic, which swept through Orthodox
Jewish communities in Brooklyn
for the better part of a year, after
no new cases were reported to offi cials
with the city’s Health Department
since mid-July and after a multi-million
dollar vaccination and education
drive by the government and local religious
leaders, according to de Blasio.
“Ending the measles outbreak required
extensive collaboration with
community organizations and Jewish
leaders,” de Blasio said on Sept. 3 in a
prepared statement. “They helped encourage
vaccinations and achieve record
immunization levels in parts of
Brooklyn.”
Health honchos declared the city’s
largest outbreak of the highly contagious
airborne pathogen in almost
three decades over after no new cases
were reported in 42 days — twice the
time it takes from the moment someone
is exposed to the virus to when
they exhibit their fi rst symptoms, according
to the Health Department.
A whopping 654 people were diagnosed
with the disease since Brooklyn’s
patient zero was identifi ed in October
2018. Of those, 72 percent of cases
were Williamsburg residents and 80
percent were under 18 years old.
Offi cials traced the borough’s outbreak
to a Brooklyn resident traveling
from Israel that month and one leader
of an Orthodox Jewish organization
said the community’s close-knit structure
enabled the illness to spread rapidly.
“The Orthodox Jewish community
takes health seriously. While its vaccination
rates have always been high,
international travel and a close-knit,
family-centered structure left our
community particularly vulnerable to
the measles, a highly contagious disease,”
said Avrohom Weinstock, the
leader of Agudath Israel of America.
The Department of Health instituted
an exclusion order in December
2018 barring unvaccinated children
from attending schools and day cares
in Williamsburg and Borough Park.
The city shut down several yeshivas
in Williamsburg that allowed unvaccinated
pupils to attend class, and
started issuing $1,000 fi nes to parents
who failed to vaccinate their kids after
the mayor declared a public health
emergency in April 2019.
Health offi cials administered
15,541 doses of the measles-mumpsrubella
vaccine in Williamsburg and
Borough Park since the April emergency
order, marking a 41 percent increase
in inoculation rates year-overyear,
according to the department.
The city lifted the December 2018
exclusion order, but children across
the state must get vaccinated before
they can return to school this Thursday,
after lawmakers in Albany passed
a package of bills repealing religious
exemptions for vaccines on June 13.
And while the epidemic is over,
city health offi cials will keep monitoring
the situation and advocating for
more vaccinations to stem future outbreaks,
according to the city’s chief
physician.
“There may no longer be local
transmission of measles in New York
City, but the threat remains given
other outbreaks in the U.S. and around
the world,” said Health Commissioner
Dr. Oxiris Barbot. “Our best defense
against renewed transmission is having
a well immunized city.”
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