(Wikimedia Commons)

Twenty-one people in Orange County have been infected, including 16 adults and five children. California reported 49 cases so far this year, and 84 cases have been confirmed in 11 states.

This is due in part to mothers who did not inoculate their children because of unsupported fears about the safety of the vaccine, according to health officials.

But University of Southern California junior Logan Heley, said that his mother, a nurse in Kansas City, expressed concern about vaccines for infants.

“She had me wait to get the vaccines for newborns until I was two because she saw babies die after having them,” he said. “Whenever I went to the doctor, my mom was hesitant about me getting certain shots unless they were required for school.”

Heley said he does not remember if he had the measles vaccine. 

If people travel overseas, where measles outbreaks are more common, they bring the highly contagious disease back to the U.S. and then spread it to the unvaccinated. An unvaccinated traveler contracted one of the first cases in the O.C. outbreak.

The disease is also more common in Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In the Philippines, 15,000 people are suffering from the disease and so far 13 U.S. travelers, mostly unvaccinated children younger than two, have returned with it. 

The vaccine is recommended for children between ages 12 and 15 months, and again at ages 4 to 6 years old. In California, none of the infected children had received the inoculation.

Reach Executive Producer Anne Artley here