BOH dealing with case of measles at Reebok Headquarters

An employee at Reebok’s World Headquarters in Canton has been diagnosed with measles, according to John Ciccotelli, the director of public health in Canton. After the case was identified Friday, June 11, public health officials spent last week helping to prevent this highly transmissible disease from spreading.

“To ensure the well-being of all our employees in the building and the general public, we are working with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Canton Board of Health to implement the agencies’ best practice protocols,” Bill Holmes, Reebok’s vice president of human resources, wrote in a statement sent to the Citizen.

The statement continues that in order to “minimize the risk of the spread of measles,” Reebok is “requiring all employees to show proof of their immunity to measles or be vaccinated.”

The Board of Health administered these vaccines last Tuesday and Wednesday at Reebok and last Thursday at its Pleasant Street offices. As of last Thursday night, 540 employees were vaccinated, according to Ciccotelli, and as of going to press, approximately 90 percent of employees have either been vaccinated or have shown proof of their immunity. A second Reebok employee was suspected of having measles, but Ciccotelli said that the test came back negative.

Ciccotelli said Canton residents do not need to be concerned about measles spreading in town.

“There are still steps that need to be taken over at Reebok,” he said during a phone interview last Thursday afternoon. “If everyone continues on the path that we’ve been on so far, I feel that we have it pretty well contained.”

Reebok, located at 1895 J.W. Foster Boulevard, is the town’s largest employer with about 1,200 employees, according to an article in the Boston Globe. The company moved its headquarters to Canton in 2000.

This employee recently traveled abroad and while it is unknown where he or she was infected, Ciccotelli said that “this individual did not likely get it from a case in the United States” and that this employee was likely not vaccinated against the disease.

Ciccotelli said that he has been in regular contact with Reebok and said that he is pleased with how the situation is being handled. “I can’t say enough good about how well Reebok has been responding to this,” he said.

A typical measles case includes some symptoms associated with a cold or flu, according to Ciccotelli, but the true indicator is a blotchy rash and white sores called Koplik’s spots that form in the mouth. The incubation period can last up to 12 days. There is no treatment for measles and it can take two weeks to run its course, according to WebMd, although severe cases can lead to death.

Measles is on the rise again in this country. “In the year 2000 the United States was able to declare that it was free of measles,” Ciccotelli explained. “[But] there are large numbers of people or even communities who refuse to vaccinate their children for legitimate or other concerns. Unfortunately, those numbers have grown so great that measles has begun to incubate in those communities.”

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Posted by Jeffrey Pickette on Jun 24 2010. Filed under Business, News, Town Government. Both comments and pings are currently closed.