A high school student in Florida is reportedly the first in the state this year to come down with the measles.
Parents of students at Palmetto Senior High School in Miami-Dade County received a letter from Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo alerting them of the situation, ABC News reported on Wednesday.
During a recent meeting regarding the case, Ladapo said:
Measles is extremely contagious. It’s probably one of the most contagious viruses in existence. We have one confirmed case in south Florida, there may be others. In terms of what we do, we’ve already had some communications with the school that the young girl attends. And we’ve provided information about options that parents have.
A Miami-Dade spokesperson confirmed the case on Tuesday, per the Associated Press (AP). The news comes after a school-aged child in west Texas died in the nation’s first measles fatality since 2015 amid an outbreak in that area, according to a Breitbart News reported published on February 26.
The child was not vaccinated, Texas Department of State Health Services officials said. The report continued:
While the vaccine series is required for children entering kindergarten in public schools across the nation, the measles cases in West Texas have been in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton has said, adding that this is case especially among children who attend small private religious schools or are homeschooled.
There have also been measles cases recently reported in Kentucky and New Jersey, per Breitbart News.
“It is important to note the cases are being reported after the disease was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” the report said.
On Sunday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared his “deep concern” over the outbreak in Texas, cautioning parents to talk with their healthcare providers about options regarding the MMR vaccine for the children under their care, Breitbart News reported.
“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons,” he wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News.
