n">(Reuters) - One of New Mexico's largest public school districts, spurred by a measles outbreak that has infected about 100 people in California, will start barring unvaccinated students from class unless they have a valid state exemption, the head of the school board said on Friday.

The move by the 14,000-student Santa Fe district came as legislators in California, Oregon and Washington state are considering laws to make it harder for parents legally to opt out of vaccinating school-aged children. Bills in several other states would loosen restrictions.

The Santa Fe district notified parents this week that any students who lack up-to-date vaccinations or bona fide state waivers for medical or religious grounds will be barred from class starting on Feb. 17, board President Steven Carrillo said.

District officials have not determined how many Santa Fe public school children are unvaccinated and how many have already obtained waivers. Some schools are known to be at 100 percent compliance, others at 60 percent, Carrillo said.

The board's action comes as New Mexico has documented a steady rise in the number of vaccine exemptions obtained by school-aged children during the past two years, up 17 percent from 2012 to 2014 to a total of 3,335 waivers.

Kenny Vigil, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Health, said the total still represents less than 1 percent of school-aged children statewide, though the department has voiced concern over the trend.

"An increase in vaccination exemptions can increase the risk for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles," the department says on its website.

Only one case of measles has been confirmed in New Mexico so far this winter, an unvaccinated baby who was hospitalized with the highly contagious disease in December and has since recovered, Vigil said. It was the first case since 2012.

The origin of the child's infection is unknown, he said, but the case was unrelated to the California outbreak because the onset occurred in late November, before the first infection in California's Disneyland is believed to have occurred.

Even so, "the impetus (for Santa Fe's action) was obviously the measles outbreak in California," Carrillo said, adding that other New Mexico districts would likely follow suit.

California public health officials report 99 people have been diagnosed with measles in the state, many of them linked to exposure to an infected person from outside the country who visited Disneyland in late December.

More than a dozen other cases have been confirmed in 19 other U.S. states and Mexico, renewing debate over the anti-vaccination movement. Fears about potential side effects of vaccines, debunked by the medical community, have led a small minority of parents to refuse to have their children vaccinated.

In Santa Monica, California, a toddler and infant center that was closed after one baby came down with the virus reopened on Friday under the caveat that all staff and returning children provide proof of inoculation. Fourteen infants deemed too young to be vaccinated must stay home, a spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Leslie Adler and Dan Grebler)

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By Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO Thu Feb 5, 2015 4:04pm EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Five babies at a suburban Chicago daycare center have been diagnosed with measles, adding to a growing outbreak of the disease across the United States, Illinois health officials said on Thursday.

Officials are investigating the cluster of measles cases at KinderCare Learning Center in Palatine, said a statement from the Illinois and Cook County health departments. All the children are under 1 year old and would not have been subject to routine measles vaccination, which begins at 12 months.

The source of the infection was not immediately known.

Public health officials have reported that more than 100 people across the United States have been infected with measles, many of them traced to an outbreak that began at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California, in December.

“These cases underscore the need for everyone who is eligible for the vaccine to ensure that they have been vaccinated,” Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “There are certain individuals who, because of their age or clinical condition, cannot be vaccinated.”

One adult in Illinois was recently diagnosed with measles. The diagnoses for the adult and two of the babies have been confirmed through laboratory testing, health officials said.

Test results for the other three cases are still pending, but they have been diagnosed based on clinical and epidemiological criteria, officials said.

On the advice of health officials, the KinderCare center is excluding until Feb. 24 unvaccinated children and staff who may have been exposed to the virus, according to a statement from Knowledge Universe, KinderCare's parent company. The center was given a "deep clean" on Wednesday night, the statement said.

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease that causes fever, red and sore eyes, runny nose, cough and a rash. It can be fatal in some cases.

Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000 after decades of intensive childhood vaccine efforts.

The measles outbreak has renewed a debate over the so-called anti-vaccination movement in which fears about potential side effects of vaccines, fueled by now-debunked research suggesting a link to autism, have led a minority of parents to not have their children inoculated.

Last year, the United States had 644 cases from 27 states, the most since 2000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Will Dunham and Peter Cooney)

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A measles vaccine is seen at Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles, California February 5, 2015.

Credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

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By Eric M. Johnson and Shelby Sebens

SEATTLE/PORTLAND, Ore Thu Feb 5, 2015 8:26pm EST

SEATTLE/PORTLAND, Ore (Reuters) - Several U.S. states are considering laws to make it harder for parents to legally opt out of vaccinating their children, as health officials fight a measles outbreak that has sickened some 120 people in more than a dozen mostly West Coast states.

Lawmakers in California, Oregon, and Washington state, which have all had recent measles cases, want to remove exemptions based on personal beliefs, while farther afield, Ohio recently extended a law that covers those entering childcare.

All U.S. states require certain vaccines for students for diseases such as mumps, rubella, tetanus, or polio, but school immunization laws grant exemptions to children for medical reasons, including an inhibited immune system. At least 20 states extend exemptions to include a range of personal beliefs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"I'm a physician and a mother. I don't want my kids exposed to un-immunized kids," said Oregon Senator Elizabeth Hayward, a Portland Democrat. "These are totally preventable diseases."

Health officials have reported that more than 120 people across the U.S. have been infected with measles, many of them traced to an outbreak that began at a Disneyland theme park in Anaheim in December.

Lawmakers in California, which has 99 confirmed cases, said on Wednesday they would introduce legislation requiring all school children to be vaccinated unless a child's life is threatened.

On Thursday, five babies at a suburban Chicago daycare center were diagnosed with measles. All are under 1 year old and would not have been subject to a routine vaccination, which begins at 12 months.

In Ohio, a law requiring children enrolled in a licensed childcare facility to be immunized against measles and other diseases takes effect in March, a state Department of Health spokeswoman told Reuters.

Oregon, with some of the country's lowest immunization rates, passed a 2013 law requiring parents to obtain a doctor's signature or watch an educational video on vaccination risks and benefits. Colorado forces schools to collect and publish data about vaccination and exemption rates.

"The vast majority of the exemptions currently being used are the personal ones," said Washington state Representative June Robinson.

But some lawmakers are going the other way, backing measures that expand parental freedoms even in the face of mainstream medicine and science supporting vaccinations.

Bills in New York State and Montana would add philosophical and personal beliefs to the current medical exemption, while proposals in Mississippi and West Virginia would add exemptions for "medical reasons or conscientious beliefs" and on religious grounds, respectively.

Debate over vaccinating has even seeped into the 2016 presidential race, with at least two potential Republican candidates in the last week causing a stir after voicing support for giving parents some choice in whether to immunize their children.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Shelby Sebens in Portland, Oregon; Additional reporting by Karen Pierog and Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; Editing by Alan Crosby)

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