South Orange-Maplewood Health Officer Candice Davenport urged unvaccinated local residents to get vaccinated against the measles, as news of an outbreak in Bergen County, NJ spread.
“You may have heard in the news that we’ve had a measles case in Bergen County. As of February 21, there are two secondary cases associated with this initial measles case,” said Davenport at the Feb. 24 South Orange Board of Health meeting.
The first measles case in Bergen County was identified on Feb. 9. Two additional cases identified last week both had close contact with the first case. All three cases were unvaccinated, according to the NJ Dept. of Health.
“This initial measles case was unvaccinated and had an international travel report. So for healthcare providers, please report any suspected measles case immediately to the local health department or to the state health department because this is an immediately reportable disease,” said Davenport.
Contact healthofficer@southorange.org or NJDOH at 609-826-5964/609-392-2020.
Measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases, and can spread very fast. According to the World Health Organization, “It spreads easily when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes. It can cause severe disease, complications, and even death, … can affect anyone but is most common in children. Measles infects the respiratory tract and then spreads throughout the body. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and a rash all over the body.”
Davenport noted that measles is preventable “if everyone gets their vaccine for measles.”
“Measles vaccination for all children, one year of age and older is recommended for prevention,” said Davenport. Children generally receive the MMR vaccine around age 1.
Davenport says that measles vaccination is also recommended for adults who are born after 1957, have not had measles in the past and are currently unvaccinated. Additionally, “if you are applying to travel internationally or visiting a community with an ongoing measles outbreak and are unvaccinated, you are strongly recommended at this time to get vaccinated.”
Davenport noted that Essex County is providing childhood vaccinations free of charge for those who qualify. Call 973-877-8456 for more information and to schedule an appointment.
In other health news, Davenport announced that a federally qualified health center will be at the Baird — 5 Mead Street – every month starting March 12 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.
“They’ll be there every second Wednesday of each month providing quarterly free COVID vaccines as well as flu vaccines. And they’ll also provide quarterly free HIV screenings,” said Davenport. “Please feel free to take advantage of having Zufall Health available. And we’re hoping that by May, they will be returning back to some nursing outreach and health screenings, and that will be at the Baird as well. So we’re looking forward to that.”
Davenport gave “a big thanks” to township nurse Anna Markarova “for being our public health nursing supervisor for the last five years. As many of you know, she has moved on to become an ER nurse and do clinical care … and she wanted to send her best regards and thank you for everything.”
Regarding the avian flu or H5N1, Davenport said, “while there have been recent confirmations of deaths in localized wild bird populations in part of New Jersey, there have been no recent reports in domestic poultry or cattle and no human infections in this state. So again, currently there are no confirmed human cases in New Jersey that we know of.”
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