Three additional measles cases were confirmed late Tuesday night, bringing the total so far to eight. The Illinois Department of Public Health and other state agencies said they mobilizing to help Chicago and Cook County contain the outbreak.
"While we're seeing new cases every day, this is not like the COVID-19 outbreak. The vast majority of Chicagoans are vaccinated against measles and therefore not at high-risk," CDPH Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo "Simbo" Ige said.
At the city’s largest migrant shelter on South Halsted Street in Pilsen, asylum seekers who have been vaccinated go about their business while the unvaccinated or recently vaccinated must stay inside and watch for symptoms.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
Dr. LaMar Hasbrouck, the CEO of Cook County’s Department of Public Health, said nearly 100 potentially exposed people are currently being tracked.
It is a situation brought about by a measles outbreak here, one public health ambassador Maria Perez said she sees every day. “They are concerned because they aren’t getting any medical attention,” said Perez, who has been helping asylum seekers through the Southwest Collective group.
The outbreak at this Pilsen migrant shelter has attracted the attention of the Centers for Disease Control and shed a new light on the importance of measles vaccinations.
Local
“If you’re not vaccinated and you happen to be in a room with somebody who has measles, you have a 90% chance of getting the virus,” Dr. Bessey Geevarghese, a pediatric infectious disease expert with Northwestern Medicine told NBC Chicago.
But that chance that can be reduced dramatically, Geevarghese said, by the MMR, or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The CDC recommends that it be administered in two doses: one when a child is between 12-15 months old and a second when they are 4 to 6 years old.
“If you get the first shot, the protection rate is somewhere around 92-95%,” Dr. Hasbrouck said. “If you get both shots, it’s up to 97% so its highly effective and very safe."
But more and more, Dr. Geevarghese said we are seeing gaps in vaccinations, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The rates of vaccination are below our 95% herd immunity that we would like,” she said. “When we sort of fall below that 95% rate, then we do tend to get worried.”
Certain adults who are immunocompromised or on some cancer treatments can also be at risk.
For those people, Geevarghese says there are blood tests you can take to check your immunity, and then get another shot if necessary.
“They are taking action by vaccinating them; they are taking action by screening them; but we are a little too late,” Perez said. “We should have been doing this from the beginning...we would have had zero cases.”
The CDC is currently reporting measles cases in 17 different states.
