"CRITICAL JUNCTURE" Ariz. monitors 1,000 as measles outbreak spreads

Jan. 22, 2015: Mickey Mouse performing during a parade at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. (AP)

Arizona health officials are keeping tabs on 1,000 people, including 200 children, who could have been exposed to measles at a Phoenix-area medical center.

The outbreak originated in California’s Disney parks has now spread to the state. Those who have been exposed to the disease who have not been vaccinated are being asked to stay from for 21 days or wear masks if they have to go out in public.

“To stay in your house for 21 days is hard,” State Health Services director Will Humble said. “But we need people to follow those recommendations, because all it takes is a quick trip to the Costco before you’re ill and, ‘bam,’ you’ve just exposed a few hundred people. We’re at a real critical juncture with the outbreak.”

Health officials do not know the number of how many children were vaccinated for measles or their age ranges. Children under a year cannot receive the vaccination for measles, mumps or rubella, but can get an immunity booster.

Arizona is second in the number of cases traced to Disney parks last month, next to California. Measles has been confirmed in Utah, Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Nebraska as well.

The Arizona woman whose case was confirmed Tuesday in Maricopa County came into contact with a Pinal County family that traveled to Disneyland, but did not have telltale signs of measles like a rash when she visited the Phoenix Children’s East Valley Center. Maricopa County health director Bob England declined to say whether she’d had the measles vaccine, which isn’t 100 percent effective in stemming the spread of the disease.

“Unfortunately, she came down with the disease and by the time it was recognized had already exposed a large number of children at the facility,” he said.

Masks are being placed outside health care facilities and signs went up outside placed in Kearny warning customers and employees that they could have been exposed to measles.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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"CRITICAL JUNCTURE" Ariz. monitors 1,000 as measles outbreak spreads

UN immune from lawsuit in Haiti cholera outbreak

Saturday, January 10, 2015 | 5:17 PM    

NEW YORK (CMC) – A United States judge has ruled that the United Nations is immune from a law suit seeking compensation for victims of the deadly cholera outbreak that left more than 8,000 people dead in Haiti.

The lawsuit had been filed by human rights groups and others, contending that the UN hadn’t screened the peacekeepers from Nepal for the disease that also sickened more than 700,000 since the first case was detected in October 2010.

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UN immune from lawsuit in Haiti cholera outbreak

Cruise ship heads back to US amidst illness outbreak

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — A Royal Caribbean cruise ship began its journey back to its home port in the US on Monday after hundreds of passengers and crew members fell ill with vomiting and diarrhoea during what was supposed to be a 10-day getaway in the sun.

The Miami-based company announced Sunday evening that it was cutting short the Explorer of the Seas’ jaunt in the Caribbean a few hours after officials from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention boarded the ship during its US Virgin Islands port call to investigate the illness.

According to the CDC, 577 out of 3,050 passengers reported being ill during the voyage that left Bayonne, New Jersey, last Tuesday. That’s nearly 19 per cent of the vacationers. Forty-nine crew members also got sick.

Royal Caribbean’s medical team said the symptoms were consistent with the common and highly contagious norovirus. It is rarely fatal, but the CDC says it can be serious, especially for youngsters and older adults. The virus spreads quickly in closed quarters through contaminated food or liquids, contaminated surfaces, and direct contact with an infected person.

CDC spokeswoman Bernadette Burden said tests would have to confirm what caused the illness outbreak on the 15-deck ship. Five samples were shipped to the US health agency’s lab Sunday.

“We won’t know for a couple of days what the pathogen is. Cruise ships are unique. It can be difficult to identify a specific source,” she said in a Monday email.

She said there had been no fatalities and no one was removed from the ship.

An Explorer of the Seas passenger named Arnee Dodd fell ill aboard the ship last week and was quarantined like the other sick people. In a Sunday tweet to The Associated Press, the Connecticut woman said: “We are all better, quarantine is over and ship has been sanitised every day.”

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd said Sunday evening that “new reports of illness have decreased day-over-day, and many guests are again up and about. Nevertheless, the disruptions caused by the early wave of illness means that we were unable to deliver the vacation our guests were expecting.”

It said a full sanitisation programme would be carried out after the Explorer of the Seas reached its home port today.

The CDC team of two epidemiologists and one environmental health officer are aboard as the ship sails to New Jersey.

Aubrey Manzo of the online cruise reviews guide Cruise Critic said all the passengers are travelling back to the US on the Explorer of the Seas. “They do not have the option of getting off the ship prior to its arrival” in Bayonne, she said in an email.

Royal Caribbean said it was “taking several steps” to compensate passengers for the shortened trip and the inconvenience. It also sought to assure customers scheduled for the ship’s next voyage that “all possible measures have been taken to prevent further problems.”

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Cruise ship heads back to US amidst illness outbreak