Mexico’s most populous state has announced heightened health screening at schools and recommended face mask use for students and staff, as the country grapples with a burgeoning measles outbreak.
This decision by Mexico state follows similar preventative measures introduced last week in Jalisco, the epicentre of the nation’s largest outbreak. In Jalisco, masks are now mandatory in schools across its capital, Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city.
As of 6 February, Mexico had recorded 2,143 confirmed measles cases nationwide, with nearly 6,000 additional suspected cases.
Jalisco alone accounted for over half of these confirmed infections, though cases have now been identified from Mexico’s northern to its southern borders.
The health department for Mexico state, which borders Mexico City on three sides, confirmed that students’ temperatures would be checked upon school entry, alongside a renewed push for vaccination campaigns.
The initial surge in measles cases began last year in the northern border state of Chihuahua. Officials traced this outbreak to an eight-year-old unvaccinated Mennonite boy who had visited relatives in Seminole, Texas, a known centre of the US outbreak.
While the Chihuahua outbreak has since been brought under control, confirmed measles cases are now present in all 32 of Mexico’s states.
Scientists say rising outbreaks across the hemisphere are linked to declining vaccination rates.
Jalisco health authorities announced Thursday that masks will be required in Guadalajara schools across seven specific neighborhoods for the next 30 days.
Jalisco was the first Mexican state to take such measures as medical groups urged the local government to take urgent action, marking the country’s first such public health mandate since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Classes were also recently suspended in 15 schools in Jalisco and the central state of Aguascalientes due to outbreaks of the highly contagious airborne virus.
Mexico state Health Secretary Macarena Montoya Olvera said Monday that the outbreak in the state is under control and that the cases have so far been light. The federal government has confirmed 40 cases there.
Mexico City has launched an aggressive vaccination campaign. As of last Friday, there were 166 confirmed cases.
The Pan American Health Organization issued an epidemiological alert last week following a surge of measles cases across the Americas.
Canada lost its measles-free status in November and the same could happen to the United States and Mexico.
