The measles outbreak centered in California is rapidly expanding, with officials now confirming 51 cases of the illness — nearly double the number reported Tuesday — and warning that more people will probably fall sick with the highly contagious virus.
Officials said there was now evidence that the measles outbreak had spread beyond people who visited Disneyland between Dec. 17 and 20 and begun infecting people in the broader community.
It is the beginning of a scenario experts have feared. Health officials generally hope a measles outbreak can be contained within a manageable group of people and eventually extinguished by keeping the ill at home or in a hospital room until they recover, with the outbreak eventually being stopped by the broader community of vaccinated people.
But kindergarten measles vaccination rates have been falling almost every year since 2002 in California, and the virus now appears to be spreading.
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