Mexican border states on alert for measles outbreak in the USA

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It faces the second largest outbreak in almost two decades and would surpass 2014 record

The United States registered 71 new cases of measles last week, a 13% increase that leads the country to face its second largest outbreak of the disease in almost two decades.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified 626 cases of the highly contagious disease – which can be lethal – in 22 states until April 19, the largest number of infections in five years.

Previously, the CDC had reported 555 cases in 20 states between January 1 and April 11. The current outbreak will possibly exceed 667 cases of a similar crisis that occurred in 2014.

Iowa and Tennessee joined the list of new measles infections. The other states are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington.

More than half of the cases detected this year occurred in New York City, mostly in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The outbreak in the United States is part of a global rise in cases of the disease, which had been eradicated.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that global infections had almost quadrupled in the first quarter of 2019, to 112 thousand 163, in relation to the same period last year.

MONITORING IN MEXICO

California (with 23 confirmed cases), Arizona and Texas are the three states bordering Mexico where the epidemic has been detected, which has activated alerts in their Mexican counterparts.

In Baja California, health authorities said they maintain constant surveillance and constant communication with their American counterparts to detect possible imported cases of travelers who have visited both the United States and various countries in Europe.

Antonio Contreras, doctor in charge of the coordination of Epidemiological Surveillance of the Sanitary Jurisdiction in Tijuana, indicated that this year there has not been any case in the region.

Two years ago in Baja California, a case of measles was treated in a woman who arrived in Tijuana after visiting Italy and San Diego, California.

The director of Health Services said that no population groups have been detected that refuse this practice.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health of Baja California Sur maintains constant monitoring and communication with the seven private hospitals operating in Los Cabos, which are mostly attended by US citizens in order to detect any suspicious cases.

In the case of Chihuahua, Ciudad Juarez has not presented a single case, said the state Health Department.

In Tamaulipas, the health authorities have established a permanent alert to reinforce measures to prevent and reinforce the health fence in the case of measles in Texas.

Gloria Molina Gamboa, Secretary of Health of the entity, said that in municipalities such as Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, where there is the largest number of repatriated Mexicans and the arrival of migrants who want to enter the United States, the measures of sanitary control.

He pointed out that in the state there has been no case of measles since 1994, however vaccination actions intensified after the expansion of the epidemic in the US.

In the first week of Easter holidays, he said, when more people arrive to the state, at airports and bus stops, actions were taken and there was a biological module in case any person seeking to move to cities in the United States where currently There are cases and I would like to get vaccinated, I could do it.

Source: el sol de mexico

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