New York City Health Department officials say that a measles outbreak is continuing to affect Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, Rockland County (Monsey, New Square and Spring Valley) and nearby Ocean County (Lakewood), New Jersey.
In Brooklyn, the outbreak has primarily affected children ages 7 months to 4 years old, in the neighborhoods of Borough Park and Williamsburg.
The disease has also been identified in other states — 25 states — across the United States. The majority of those who caught the disease were not vaccinated.
The outbreak has also traveled across the Atlantic to eastern Europe as well.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control says vaccination rates are lower than 90 percent in most countries in Europe, where more than 41,000 cases of measles have been reported; at least 40 deaths from the disease were confirmed this year. According to the World Health Organization, more than 23,000 people have caught the disease in Ukraine.