NEW YORK, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- New York City has defeated its largest measles outbreak in nearly three decades, city officials announced on Tuesday.
The announcement marked the end of a citywide emergency order which required mandatory measles-mumps-rubella (MMP) vaccinations in some worst-affected neighborhood since April.
A total of 654 people have been diagnosed with the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease since its outbreak in New York in October 2018. Around 73 percent of the individuals were unvaccinated, according to the city's health department.
The majority of the cases occurred in Brooklyn, especially in several ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities where some misinformation about the MMP vaccinations was spreading.
Over 6 million U.S. dollars have been spent in eliminating the epidemic, largely through an outreach campaign to urge people to vaccinate their children.
New York State lawmakers also revoked a religious exemption for mandatory school vaccinations in June.
"We are grateful to the New Yorkers who shared the truth about vaccines and protected the health of their friends and neighbors through this outbreak," said New York City health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot.
"There may no longer be local transmission of measles in New York City, but the threat remains given other outbreaks in the U.S. and around the world. Our best defense against renewed transmission is having a well immunized city," she added.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Aug. 29, 1,234 cases of measles infection were reported across the country since 2018, marking the greatest number in a single year since 1992.
