California daycare center shuts down
after baby contracts measles
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[February 03, 2015]
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A daycare center at
a Southern California high school has been closed and more than a dozen
infants placed under three-week quarantine after a baby enrolled in the
program was diagnosed with measles, a school district official said on
Monday.
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The move comes as public health officials reported that more than
100 people across the United States were infected with measles, many
of them traced to an outbreak that began at the Disneyland theme
park in Anaheim in December.
The child, who is under a year old and therefore unvaccinated, was
enrolled in the daycare center at Santa Monica High School, said
Gail Pinsker, spokeswoman for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School
District.
A freshman baseball coach at Santa Monica High School was diagnosed
with measles last month, but Pinsker said the two cases were not
connected and that the coach had recovered from his illness.
"There is concern in the community over this. This is a concerning
disease," she said. "Over the last couple weeks we've encouraged
families to get students immunized."
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Pinsker said that the "infant room" at the daycare center had been
closed indefinitely following the diagnosis and that 14 other babies
enrolled there had been placed under 21-day quarantine on the orders
of Los Angeles County health officials.
The daycare center's "toddler room" had been closed through
Thursday, she said, and all children would be required to show proof
of immunization before they would be allowed to return.
"The district is trying to stay on top this and being as transparent
as possible," Pinsker said. "The health and safety of our students
and staff is our first priority."
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The California Department of Public Health said on Monday that 92
cases of measles had been confirmed in the state, up from 91 on
Friday. More than a dozen other cases have been confirmed in 13
other U.S. states and in Mexico. No deaths have been reported.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000 after
decades of intensive childhood vaccine efforts. But last year the
nation had its highest number of measles cases in two decades.
Most people recover from measles within a few weeks, although it can
be fatal in some cases.
(Editing by Eric Walsh and Will Dunham)
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