WESTON, Fla. – A patient who returned from a trip is the latest measles patient in Florida. The Polk County case of the highly contagious airborne virus increased the state’s total confirmed cases from nine to ten.
According to the Florida Department of Health, the new patient is between the ages of 20 to 24. The other nine cases are in Broward County.
Three other patients are between the ages of 10 to 14. Four others are between the ages of 5 to 9, and two are four years old or younger.
“We are living through a disease that was eradicated in the early 2000s,” said Luisa Murcia, a concerned parent who recently talked to Local 10 News in Broward.
On Sunday, during This Week In South Florida, Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert with Florida International University, said the effectiveness of vaccines caused people to forget how dangerous measles can be.
The FDOH list in Broward included six cases since Tuesday after officials reported an outbreak at a Broward County Public School in Weston.
“It used to be that you had to have really good reasons to opt-out,” Marty said about the vaccines required to attend public schools.
Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, faced criticism over his handling of the outbreak at Manatee Bay Elementary School, at 19200 Manatee Isles Drive.
“Due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, (the state health department) is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance,” Ladapo wrote in a letter to parents.
Broward County Superintendent Peter Licata reported during a public meeting that 33 out of 1,067 Manatee Bay Elementary School students were not vaccinated.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children who are not vaccinated against measles “be excluded” from going to school for three weeks to contain an outbreak.
“Measles will infect 15 to 20 people per person amongst the unvaccinated,” Marty said.
Watch the related interview on This Week In South Florida