NEW YORK, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 250 people have been in quarantine in the U.S. state of South Carolina after a measles outbreak was reported over the weekend, according to local health officials.
As of Tuesday, the South Carolina Department of Public Health had reported 27 new cases of measles since Friday, bringing the total number of reported cases in the Upstate region to 111.
Most of those new cases were related to a church in Spartanburg County, South Carolina's northwest, the agency said.
The measles outbreak in South Carolina is "accelerating" in the wake of Thanksgiving travel and a lack of vaccinations, state epidemiologist Linda Bell warned Wednesday. "That is a significant increase in our cases in a short period of time," she said.
The vast majority of reported cases of the highly contagious disease were in unvaccinated children.
The agency confirmed that of the 111 cases, 105 are unvaccinated and one is vaccinated. Another three are partially vaccinated.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded a total of 1,912 measles cases nationwide so far this year. The majority of the cases have occurred in unvaccinated children and teenagers. ■
