Measles Scare Delays Flight at JFK Airport

A JetBlue flight traveling from the Dominican Republic was quarantined at New York City‘s John F. Kennedy International Airport while officials responded to a measles scare onboard Sunday night.

The airline confirmed the incident in a statement, noting that all passengers were eventually cleared by medical personnel.

“After reports of a potential medical concern onboard, flight 410 from Santo Domingo to JFK was requested to hold for medical services out of an abundance of caution so a customer could be examined,” a JetBlue spokesperson said in a statement.

“Some sort of medic type guy came on with a mask and a policeman, probably Port Authority, with a mask looked at the kid and decided that it was probably mosquito bites,” one of the flight’s passengers told New York.

“The passenger, who was previously vaccinated, was evaluated by EMS and cleared,” the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed.

Nonetheless, a Passover program director who organized the trip for Orthodox families cried foul after the quarantine, claiming the Orthodox Jewish boy was profiled by JetBlue because of his faith.

Sunday’s scare comes just weeks after a flight attendant for Israeli national carrier El Al was airlines/flight-attendant-hospitalized-with-measles.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>hospitalized for measles. Meanwhile, not far from JFK, Newark Liberty International Airport has experienced airlines/newark-airport-travelers-may-have-been-exposed-to-measles.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>two potential measles outbreaks since late last year.

Last week, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, called the current outbreak “deeply troubling.”

As of Friday, the CDC reported more than 700 cases of measles in the U.S. since the start of the year. “This is the greatest number of cases reported in the United States since measles was eliminated from this country in 2000,” the agency said in a statement.

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