437 hospitalized with measles, 39 in ICUs, amid outbreak that started in May

At a Knesset Health Committee meeting today, Dr. Sharon Elroei-Price, head of public health services at the Health Ministry, states that approximately 1,700 patients have been confirmed with measles in the past six months, 437 have been hospitalized since the outbreak began in May, and 39 are in intensive care.

Six children have died in the past two weeks, all of them younger than two, with no underlying conditions.

She warns that the number of unvaccinated children in the Haredi sector, in Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Harish, Nof HaGalil, Modiin Illit, Kiryat Gat, Ashdod, and Safed has doubled since the previous measles outbreak in 2018.

Yael Piles, health coordinator in the ministry’s budget division, says that NIS 5.5 million ($1.7 million) has been allocated to treat the current outbreak.

However, Gil Ribush, Deputy Director of the Jerusalem Municipality, says there are “long lines to get vaccinated and there is an acute shortage of nurses who are working nonstop.”

“Apart from the hard core that do not want to be vaccinated,” says Yona Kaufman, the health supervisor in the Beit Shemesh municipality, “the data is now improving thanks to the vaccination mobile unit.”

She says that 2.5 times more vaccines were administered this year than in the same period last year, with 3.3 times more in Jerusalem, five times more in Beit Shemesh, and three times more in Bnei Brak.

Kaufman praises the activities of the Haredi public who are recruiting thousands of new vaccine recipients in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh.