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Measles Outbreak in Boston

by Medindia Content Team on Jun 11 2006 3:56 PM

New York, June 11 An outbreak of measles in the US city of Boston is allegedly being linked to a computer programmer who came from India in April to work for a financial services company.

So far 11 cases have been identified and the authorities are taking several steps to contain the disease which struck the city for the first time since 1999, The Boston Globe reported.

It claimed that the programmer who came from India on April 26 showed first symptoms of measles -- fever, cough and rash -- on May 5 and the disease struck half a dozen other workers and an additional four cases of the potentially lethal disease were reported last week.

The paper quoted the city health authorities as saying they believe that all 11 cases can be traced to that single visitor.

Since the outbreak, the state has distributed or ordered 23,000 doses of measles vaccine, at a cost of nearly 400,000 dollars.

Hundreds of people at three workplaces in the building where the programmer worked have been ordered to stay home until they can prove they aren't susceptible or until they have passed the incubation period for the disease, the Globe said.

And disease detectives have scoured medical records, examined office airflow patterns, and conducted dozens of interviews in their quest to understand and stop the outbreak.

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