CSUMB meets with health department to discuss measles outbreak

California State University Monterey Bay has watched closely as California State University Los Angeles had hundreds quarantined.

“Really every University should be preparing for this and be ready to respond,” CSUMB spokesman Noah Rappahahn said. “If it occurred there, we have a head start. We see it’s occurring there lets get ahead of it.”

Monday University leaders spoke with the Monterey County Health Department to discuss a plan if there was a case of measles at CSUMB.

“It certainly does feel real, because there’s other schools and universities in California dealing with this,” Rappahahn said.

There’s been one case of measles in Santa Cruz County, but none at any school on the Central Coast. CSUMB wants to be prepared and the county health department is happy to step in.

“The department has a lot of experience in working with a lot of our campuses on how to prepare, and most importantly how we would work together if it were to spread,” Monterey County health officer said.

The CDC says adults who were vaccinated prior to 1968, likely only had one dose of the measles vaccination MMR, and if they fall under certain criteria the CDC recommends they be re-vaccinated.

“Adults who only received one that should receive a second, include health care workers individuals that are traveling to areas of the world, or here in the United States, where there’s outbreaks of measles, and college students,” Moreno said.

Receiving vaccinations to prevent measles is already a requirement at CSU’s and UC’s. UC Santa Cruz sent out an email today to their students ensuring that, “in 2017 and 2018 they began to require all incoming students to show they had received 2 MMR vaccinations.”

CSUMB says one of their biggest take-away’s from their meeting with the health department told them if a student thinks they have measles, call the health department, but do not physically go into a health center.