US officials have declared New York's worst measles epidemic in nearly 30 years is officially over, with no new cases since mid-July.
More than 600 people had been diagnosed with measles since October last year, many in areas with large Orthodox Jewish communities.
The rise comes as a growing anti-vaccine movement gains steam around the world, driven by fraudulent claims linking the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, to a risk of autism in children.
At the peak of the epidemic, local Orthadox Jew Matis* told Dateline that immunisation has caused anguish in his community, with some believing vaccinations are harmful or interfere with God's will.
“Unfortunately, certain aspects of the new age movement have penetrated into the Jewish community,” he said.
“The new age movement largely does not believe in conventional medicine or science.”
Matis lives in Rockland County, which has been at the centre of the outbreak with only 77 percent of children in the area vaccinated against measles. He said many Orthdox Jews had been upset about the portrayal of their community during the outbreak.
“The world is getting a skewed picture of what Orthodox Jews believe,” he said.
“Unfortunately [some people] are uneducated and believe that shots are dangerous, they're harmful and they cause disease more than they cure or prevent diseases.
“I find it to be ironic that many of the pioneers of vaccines were Jewish scientists. Louis Pasteur up with a vaccine against rabies, Jona Salk the vaccine for polio, and other notable vaccinations were developed.”
Schools and nurseries were the focal points of government efforts to stop the spread of the disease.
Schools and nurseries were the focal points of government efforts to stop the spread of measles. Source: AFP
"To keep our children and communities safe, I urge all New Yorkers to get vaccinated. It's the best defense we have," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement.
Authorities declared measles eliminated in the United States in 2000 but there have been 1,234 cases of the potentially deadly disease reported in the country this year, the worst since 1992 according to the Center for Disease Control.
New York city officials made vaccinations mandatory in the worst affected areas in April to help stem the epidemic. Schools were also allowed to turn away children who had not been vaccinated.
Those measures have been lifted, but a New York state law passed in June outlawing religious exemptions that had allowed parents to circumvent school-mandated vaccination remains in place.
"There may no longer be local transmission of measles in New York City, but the threat remains given other outbreaks in the US and around the world," said New York's health commissioner Oxiris Barbot.
The city government spent over $6 million and mobilized more than 500 employees to fight the outbreak.
The New York City government spent millions fighting the outbreak. Source: iStockphoto
Last month, the World Health Organization said there were 89,994 cases of measles in 48 European countries in the first six months of 2019.
That was more than double the number in the same period in 2018 when there were 44,175 cases, and already more than the 84,462 cases reported for all of 2018.
*Matis did not want his surname revealed.
