The New York City Department of Health is warning parents about a chicken pox outbreak after more than six dozen children have been infected in Brooklyn.
Health officials said so far, 75 people have been infected since March in an Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg. The median age of patients is 3 years old.
Of those who have contracted the virus, health officials said 72 percent had not been vaccinated and 14 percent had not had the recommended number of doses of the vaccine.
Health officials warn the virus is extremely contagious, so they are urging people to make sure they are vaccinated.
Patients with the chicken pox are contagious two days before they even develop a rash and those who have not been vaccinated can get sick as many as three weeks after they are exposed.
Those at greatest risk from serious complications are infants, pregnant women and people with autoimmune diseases or compromised immune systems.
(AP)
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9 Responses
If it weren’t for the risk of infecting others, I’d say that parents who fail to vaccinate their yinglach deserve what they get. There is NO reason not to vaccinate. Its safe and there are multiple ways to get vaccinated for those who cannot afford to go to a private physician including public health clinics and NYC programs for low income residents. To put you own children at risk and increase the risk for others is creating pikach nefesh. At a minimum, these children should not be allowed to attend pre-school or kindergarten programs.
The virus that causes chickenpox is one of the “TORCHes” virus that can be devastating if acquired during pregnancy.
These families are doing harm to their present children, their future children, and to the entire klal.
It is 5776 and there is **NO** reason to not vaccinate.
I’m curious as to whether or not the occurrence of autism has been lowered among those families who did not vaccinate. Most likely the sample is too small. At least I hope so.
To #3.
There is no peer reviewed medical research showing any correlation between chicken pox vaccination and autism.
To #3.
This continued lie is perpetuated by misinformed parents who want to blame others for their children’s tragic afflictions with autism and a small cadre of celebrities who fan their paranoia with conspiracy theories about drug and vaccine companies suppressing evidence of risk. I feel sorry for the parents but the risks of not getting vaccinated are so much greater there is no comparison. If you don’t want to vaccinate, keep your child at home and don’t risk infecting others. Others should not pay for your ignorance.
Motchah11: It is a myth that vaccination have a link with autism, no medical professional will tell you that it does. See the CDC website.
Painful I remember when I had chicken pox as a kid.
I’m so sorry to all of you’s that are so ignorant. There is absolutely no way that the varicella vaccine prevents chicken pox and proof is that I have not seen a difference in my (extended) family between the ones that have and have not vaccinated. They have all equally gotten the chicken pox.
And I trust that you all have had chicken pox when you were younger. The only danger is that if you have not gotten the immunity when you are younger and then contract it during pregnancy. So lets stop with all the shtuyot and let our bodies fight out this childhood disease as it knows how
YWN you already posted this story 11 hours before this story.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/418951/outbreak-of-chickenpox-in-williamsburg-blamed-on-non-vaccinated-children.html
#7 you know you are being disingenuous because a) the severity of the case when contracted despite vaccination tends to be much lighter
b)the doctors I have spoken with believe the level of contagion from an infected person who was vaccinated is also much lower.