The U.S. Health Secretary says he is “deeply worried” about the outbreak in Texas.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the top US health official known for vaccine skepticism, supported the measles jab amid the fatal outbreak of infection in Texas.
In an opinion article released Sunday by Fox News, Kennedy said he was “deeply worried” about the spread spread of the illness, despite suggesting it was “not unusual.”
“The vaccine not only protects individual children from measles, but also contributes to community immunity and protects people who are unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons,” Kennedy wrote, but he said the vaccination decision was “personal.”
The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services said that “virtually every child” in the US had signed up for measles before the MMR vaccine was introduced.
“For example, in the US from 1953 to 1962, there was an average of 530,217 confirmed cases and 440 deaths, with one case fatality rate in 1,205 cases,” he wrote.
Last month, US authorities reported the first measles death in 10 years after a child in a school that was hospitalized after suffering from illness and not hospitalized in northwestern Texas.
As of Friday, 146 cases had been identified in the state since late January, according to the Texas Department of Health.
Health officials say the incident is concentrated in the Mennonite community, a Christian sect that emerged from the fundamental factions of 16th century reform.
Kennedy, who has promoted scientifically unreliable research linking vaccines to autism, drew criticism last month when he appeared to downplay the outbreak by pointing out several outbreaks this year.
Measles is extremely dangerous for unvaccinated people, including young infants who are not eligible for vaccination.
About one in five unvaccinated individuals in the US who get measles are hospitalized, but about one of the children with the disease suffers from pneumonia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Source link
