The Ministry of Health says it is monitoring the island for imported cases of measles, given the recent increase in cases in the United States and across the Region.
In a release today, the Ministry says as at 30 March 2019, there were 3,674 suspected cases and 596 confirmed cases in the Region of the Americas with over 300 of the confirmed cases from the USA.
Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton, however noted that “there has been a decrease in uptake of the vaccines over the last few years and in 2018, Jamaica had 89% coverage of MMR1 and 82% coverage of MMR2.
He says the Ministry is therefore appealing to all parents to visit the nearest health centre to ensure that their children are fully vaccinated as measles kills more children than any other vaccine-preventable disease.”
