And Los Angeles health officials have ordered a quarantine for over 1,000 students and staff at two colleges amid the largest measles outbreak to hit the U.S. in decades. The order came after a student at UCLA and another at Cal State Los Angeles came down with measles, potentially exposing hundreds of others on each campus. This is L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

Barbara Ferrer: “The Department of Public Health has asked people who have been issued a quarantine order to adhere to the following: to remain at home or in a designated setting and not to attend school or work outside of that designated setting. If they have medical appointments or some other urgent matter that needs, that requires that they leave the home, they need to notify the Public Health Department before they do that, and they have a number to call so that they can get assistance in making sure, as they travel, they don’t inadvertently risk exposing others to measles. They’re not allowed to use public or commercial transportation; that includes buses, subways, trains, taxis or airplanes.”

Measles is a highly contagious infection that kills 100,000 people worldwide each year, most of them children. Public health officials say the disease is resurgent in the U.S. due to declining vaccination rates, spawned by a discredited theory that the MMR vaccine causes autism.