Two Florida children have been infected with measles after the state's top health official defied federal guidance to stop an outbreak at an elementary school.
Six children at Manatee Bay Elementary School in Westin, near Fort Lauderdale, contracted the disease more than a week ago. New state health data shows two additional cases in Broward County, one in a child under the age of 5 and the other in a child between the ages of 5 and 9.
The new cases bring the total to eight, but Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said the highly contagious and preventable disease is spreading again globally and in the United States. Days after going against guidance from the federal government and medical experts to stop the virus, Florida is one of 11 states with the highest number of cases. Cases seen this year.
It's unclear whether Florida's two new cases are linked to outbreaks at schools. Broward County Public Schools has not confirmed any new cases since Tuesday's six cases, district spokesman John Sullivan said.
The state Department of Health said it has no additional information at this time.
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Ladapo said in Tuesday's letter that Manatee Bay parents can decide whether to send their children back to school, but the statement says school children should stay home to prevent the spread of measles. contradicts federal and medical expert recommendations that The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that unvaccinated children exposed to measles be isolated for three weeks. Ladapo appears to agree with this assessment, citing “high immunization rates” and the burden of missing school for healthy children, before concluding that children's attendance will be left to the discretion of parents and guardians. But he said the state's recommendations are subject to change.
Health experts are concerned about his lax attitude.
“This is saying that the state's surgeon general is not going to impose any tenets of public health in the name of freedom,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Center for Vaccine Education at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Ta. To stop a recent measles outbreak among children in Pennsylvania City. “He wants freedom at the cost of putting his children at risk.”
The only freedom Ladapo protects is the “freedom to do harm,” Offit said.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis nominated Ladapo to be Surgeon General in 2021, in part because of his vocal opposition to mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations and school closures. . Ladapo said last month that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines violate federal approval and scientific consensus and pose health risks.
A measles outbreak has once again left Ladapo isolated. Experts say isolation and vaccination are the best ways to stop the spread.
“This is a vaccine-preventable disease,” Dr. Suresia Gambon, president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told USA TODAY. “We have very strict guidelines on what to do during an outbreak to quickly contain it.”
Gambon's organization, which represents the state's pediatricians, stands by the CDC's recommendation that school children should have been told to quarantine.
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Measles can carry serious risks. According to the CDC, about 1 in 5 children who get sick will end up in the hospital. Also, 1 in 1,000 people may develop encephalitis, swelling of the brain that can have neurological effects. One to three out of every 1,000 children die.
The full dose regimen of the vaccine is approximately 98% effective against measles. About 90% of unvaccinated people who come into contact with the virus will become infected. Measles can be transmitted without physical contact. People can become infected from droplets left in the air or on surfaces.
At Manatee Bay Elementary School, 33 out of 1,067 students have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, Broward County Schools' Sullivan said. This means that about 97% of people have received a certain percentage of measles vaccine. Citing privacy concerns, Sullivan declined to say whether the six students who contracted measles had been previously vaccinated.
Consistent with state numbers, fewer than 92% of Broward County kindergarteners were vaccinated in 2022. This is below the national average, which has been declining in recent years, and below the U.S. goal of 95% measles vaccination coverage.
Meanwhile, parents in Manatee Bay pulled their children from school. Sullivan said 219 students did not attend classes in person on Tuesday. By Friday, some students had returned, leaving 159 students at home.
In January, the CDC warned health care providers that they needed to do more to detect measles that could spread in the community as cases increased worldwide. Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the lack of large-scale outbreaks in the United States so far is due to the lack of vaccination against measles. He said this shows that sufficient progress is still being made.
But Moss said under the right circumstances, an outbreak could worsen if not enough vaccinated children were exposed to the virus and measles spread in the community.
