(Image source from: CBC.ca)

The New York City has declared a health emergency after an outbreak of measles in parts of the city attributed to many people in those areas who refused to get vaccinated believing in unscientific rumors.

Under the emergency order, people living in the affected areas will have to get vaccinated or face fines of $1,000.

As of Monday, the city has reported 329 cases of measles, according to City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, who oversees health issues in the city of 8.26 million people. "We expect these numbers to continue, given the incubation period", she warned. 

The city closed a pre-school programme on Monday because it did not comply with orders that schools cannot allow unvaccinated children to attend classes. Barbot said: "This outbreak is being fueled by a small group of anti-vaxxers in these neighborhoods. They have been spreading dangerous misinformation based on fake science."

Declaring, "Children are in danger", Mayor Bill DeBlasio ordered the emergency last week. The United States politicians and media take a condescending attitude towards developing countries and their health situation, but now the nation's media capital is threatened by an epidemic because of basic ignorance of science, and the people involved are not third world immigrants either.

Many of those who claim that the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) and other vaccines cause autism or other diseases and oppose vaccinations are not the poor and illiterate, but the well-off.

"Higher income, White population, and private school type significantly predicted greater increases in exemptions" from vaccinations, according to an article in the journal American Public Health.

Trashing the unscientific rumors, Barbot said: "As a pediatrician, I know the MMR vaccine is safe and effective."

The city took the unusual step of singling out a religious minority, the ultra-orthodox Jews, for the outbreak and designating the areas where they are concentrated for compulsory vaccination. "Most of these cases have involved members of the Orthodox Jewish community," the Health Department said.

By Sowmya Sangam