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40 Unvaccinated Students Asked Not To Attend School For A Week After Measles Case
Photo by perpetualplum via Flickr
A Riverside County high school has barred 40 unvaccinated students from attending school for a week after a school employee came down with measles. Vista Murrieta High School in Murrieta checked the vaccination records of the student body after an unidentified employee was diagnosed with the disease. Students whose records showed no measles vaccine have been asked to not attend until February 7 in a letter sent out on Friday. The employee has returned to work because he is no longer considered infectious, but the February 7 date was chosen because it is the end of the "surveillance period" when "a potential measles carrier would go from incubating the disease to revealing signs of having it," according to NBC 4.
"It's to protect the health of those who are being excluded and to protect the community. The last thing I want is more preventable cases," Riverside County Public Health Officer Cameron Kaiser told the station. Riverside County is one of the counties with confirmed cases as a result of the Disneyland outbreak, now at 91 after the initial 9 cases reported.
Just two days before the Vista Murrieta High order, Riverside County barred 70 students from Palm Desert High School for the same reason. Earlier this month 24 Orange County high school students who were unvaccinated were also barred from school.
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