Two cases of measles have been confirmed among students at two separate Chicago Public Schools schools, accounting for two of the city's 10 confirmed cases to date, eight of whom are Pilsen immigrants. Relates to shelters.
At least one infected student lives in a shelter in Pilsen, and cases have also been reported at Amour Elementary School in Bridgeport and Cooper Elementary School Dual Language Academy in Pilsen.
CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said Thursday: “At this time, there are only two students in two schools who have contracted measles. We are working with the communities in these schools.” .
“What I want our families to know is that, unlike COVID-19, more than 90 percent of our community has been vaccinated against measles, which is highly contagious. “However, if your child develops symptoms such as a rash or high fever, we want parents to be aware of this. If your child has a fever, be sure to take your child to the doctor.” Martinez said.
NBC Chicago spoke with Dr. Alfredo Mena Lora, director of infectious diseases at St. Anthony Hospital.
“The real concern is that this is a highly contagious disease,” Dr. Laura said. “However, this disease is likely to be preventable with a vaccine, so you should be concerned about whether your child is up to date with the vaccine. If so, it is highly effective and you should children will be protected.”
He said he is confident Chicago can reach a point where it can contain the spread, given Chicago's high vaccination rate and increased awareness of the disease.
“I think the vaccine is a victim of its own success. We don't see these situations as often as we used to,” he said. “So it's really important that people actually realize how dangerous these situations are if they're not vaccinated.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set the target level for schools to reach herd immunity at 95%. This is the percentage of students who need to be vaccinated to avoid widespread transmission of the disease.
Approximately 90% of students at Armor Elementary School and 98% of bilingual students at Cooper Elementary School will be vaccinated against measles before new students arrive in the 2022-2023 school year, according to tools from NBC 5 and Telemundo Investiga. I did.
Use this tool to find vaccination rates for Illinois schools in 2022-23.
CPS requires students to receive the MMR vaccine unless a parent has medical or religious reasons to do so, or the student is in a temporary living situation, such as an immigrant shelter.
“The rare exception is children who cannot receive the vaccine if they have a weakened immune system,” Mena Lora said. “If that's the case, make sure you can give your child a drug called immune globulin to protect them if they become infected.”
Chicago health officials reported vaccinating 900 people at the Pilsen shelter last week.
