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 The growing outbreak in pockets across the country has triggered
multiple public health efforts seeking to limit exposure to measles,
including quarantines at two California universities.
"The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around
now," Trump told reporters at the White House. "They have to get
their shots."
Nearly 700 cases have been confirmed by federal health officials as
of this week in a resurgence that has been concentrated in a handful
of states -- New York, Washington, Michigan, New Jersey and
California -- although 22 states in all are affected.
Measles can cause severe complications or death. So far, no U.S.
fatalities have been reported.
U.S. public health officials have lamented the preventable outbreak
and have blamed the nationwide outbreak, which comes alongside a
global rise in measles cases, in part on the spread of
misinformation about vaccine safety.
Some Americans have eschewed the vaccine for a variety of reasons
from religious beliefs to doubts about modern medicine as well as
lingering impacts from a debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
No link has been found between the measles vaccine and autism
spectrum disorders.
Complacency is also an issue. With fewer cases of the infectious
disease in recent decades, much of the public has not seen its
impact firsthand.
Measles can cause pneumonia, brain swelling known as encephalitis,
and severe ear infections that can lead to deafness, according the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also can cause
premature birth in pregnant women and, in rare cases, harm the
central nervous system.
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Up to 90 percent of those not immunized who have close contact with
an infected person are likely to contract measles, the CDC has said.
On Thursday, county public health officials announced a quarantine
at the University of California, Los Angeles and California State
University, Los Angeles.
New York City officials have declared a public health emergency
after an outbreak in parts of Brooklyn and have taken the unusual
step of ordering unvaccinated people in affected neighborhoods to be
immunized.
Trump, before winning the U.S. presidency, appeared to raise some
doubts about vaccines, tweeting in 2014: "I believe in vaccinations
but not massive, all at once, shots. Too much for small child to
handle. Govt. should stop NOW!"
Days before Trump took office in the White House in January 2017,
vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters Trump was
planning a vaccine safety review panel, a project Trump's
then-spokeswoman said was being explored but had not been decided.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Makini Brice; Writing by Susan Heavey;
Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
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