Disneyland measles cases spreading through SoCal

LOS ANGELES – Nearly a hundred Californians have now been infected with measles and many of the cases can be traced to Christmas time in Disneyland.

Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Bernardino county were affected by the outbreak, prompting several schools to ban unvaccinated students, stop classes, and issue quarantines.

Symptoms including fever, runny nose, and severe rashes, which may not appear until days after a person is exposed.

“That’s public safety and that’s the responsibility of the health department to make the order to not let the kids go to school because it’s a communicable disease,” explained Elma Ruden, a Filipina nurse from Beverly Hills.

A few miles from the latest measles case Santa Monica High School, which has temporarily closed it’s day care center, Filipinos from LA’s Westside say it does concern them that the disease is in their neighborhood.

“I hope they can contain that as soon as possible,” said Romey Rossell, who lives in Santa Monica.

For Ruden, she feels confident that as long as a person has been vaccinated, there should be no fear.

“I’m not worried. We have the health department to take care of it and it happens usually to younger adults and babies,” she said.

Health officials have blamed the outbreak on unvaccinated patients.

California laws require students to be vaccinated, but parents can obtain waivers that will allow them to skip the vaccination over religious or personal beliefs.

For each measles case, local health officials investigate an infected person and the places where they may have been and have exposed people.

You can contact Steve Angeles at steve_angeles@abs-cbn.com for more information.