BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – Data from the Florida Department of Health showed the total number of measles cases in Broward County now stands at eight as of last weekend.
“This should be a public health emergency,” said Dr. Dyan Hes, a New York pediatrician and part-time South Florida resident. “Despite the best medical care, 1 in 3 out of 1000 patients will die of measles.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed there have been about 35 measles cases across 15 states.
It comes after the first case of measles in South Florida was reported on Feb. 16, an outbreak linked to Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston.
“There are 33 of 1,067 Manatee Bay students that do not have an MMR vaccine for various reasons,” Broward Schools Superintendent Peter Licata told Local 10 News last week.
In an email Monday, Broward County Public Schools says it is still only tracking six cases among its student population, suggesting cases have now spread outside the school community.
“People forgot how dangerous this virus is,” said Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert with Florida International University.
On Sunday, during This Week in South Florida on Local 10, Marty said the effectiveness of vaccines caused people to forget how dangerous measles can be.
“They started allowing more people to opt out of vaccinating their children,” she said.
Marty said the state of Florida does allow for ideological exemptions to its school vaccination requirements.
The state’s surgeon general said it’s normally recommended that unvaccinated kids stay home for 21 days but added that parents should decisions about their child’s school attendance.
“When the outbreak started, we did not take the public health measure of immediately calling for vaccination of all people who are not vaccinated,” said Marty.
“It’s sad that instead of ordering families to get vaccinated he said to stay home for 21 days,” said Hes.