WATCH: Disneyland Measles Outbreak Spreads Across Western States

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A measles outbreak that began at Disneyland in California has begun to spread further across the country and into Mexico.

As those infected with measles have returned from vacations and taken the virus home to unvaccinated family members, the number of measles cases related to Disneyland or to the adjacent Disney California Adventure Park in Orange county has expanded to four dozen.

“I think we’ll see some satellite outbreaks,” says William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert and professor at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville. “It’s going to take a while to control.”

The first people to develop measles had visited the Disney parks from December 15 to December 20, California health officials said.

The first infected patient or carrier of the illness, also known as “patient zero,” has not yet been identified.

Measles may develop between three to 21 days of exposure.

42 cases of measles related to the Disney parks have been diagnosed in California, as well as three in Utah, two in Washington, one in Colorado, and one in Mexico. The patient in mexico is a 22-month-old girl.

While measles was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000, the country continued to experience a few dozen cases yearly as travelers from other countries were diagnosed in the country.

Last year, however, the measles outbreak infected 628 people as a result of an anti-vaccine movement.

Health officials stress that the measles vaccine is “one of our oldest and safest vaccines, developed more than fifty years ago.”

More at KVUE

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