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Health official’s endorsement comes as South Carolina faces hundreds of cases and US risks losing elimination status

A senior US public health official called on Americans to get vaccinated against measles as outbreaks continue in multiple states and concerns grow that the country could lose its measles elimination designation. Dr Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, spoke in support on Sunday of the measles vaccine.

“Take the vaccine, please,” said Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “We have a solution for our problem.”

“Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,” he told CNN’s State of the Union. “But measles is one you should get your vaccine.”

His boss, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, has a long history of questioning both the safety and necessity of vaccines.