Two Brooklyn migrant shelter residents test positive for measles

Two people living in a Brooklyn migrant shelter have tested positive for measles — raising the number of cases across the city to 11 this year.

Health officials scrambled to determine who else has been exposed at the Clinton Hill facility, a massive shelter, which opened at at 47 Hall St. last summer, which houses more than 3,000 adult migrants, according to City Council Member Crystal Hudson.Testing is being limited to the first floor where the two infected residents lived.

Health officials are also assessing vaccination documentation. Anyone who isn’t immune will have to quarantine for 21 days, according to Hudson.

Measles cases have surged in NYC this year, compared to just one case in 2023, health department data indicate. The 11 cases, as of Friday, mark the most seen since 2019, when an outbreak caused 605 infections.

A highly contagious airborne disease, measles spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It can linger in a room for up to two hours even after that person has left. Most New Yorkers are vaccinated against it, so the risk to the community is not great, Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan reportedly said Friday night.

Hudson points the finger at City Hall.

“My office has been pushing this administration to provide vaccines to residents at this site for months, only to be rebuffed time and time again,” she said. “In fact, our request for a vaccination van at an on-site resource fair organized by my office on June 1 was denied.”  

Symptoms — typically high fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes and rash — generally appear within seven to 14 days of contact with the virus.

The Clinton Hill community has been up in arms about the large-scale shelters in the neighborhood, including one on Hall Street, where a migrant was stabbed in June.