(MENAFN – AFP) Health authorities on Thursday announced the first United States death from measles in 12 years, after an autopsy showed a woman’s fatal pneumonia was caused by the contagious disease.
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While fatalities from the disease are rare, health officials pointed out that the woman, who was herself vaccinated, was especially at risk on due to a weakened immune system from another illness. She was in the hospital the same time that another patient developed a rash later that turned out to be contagious for measles. She has not been named or her age given, but officials said she was not elderly.
Moyer told the Associated Press, however, that her case was not related to the measles outbreak at Disneyland that started in December a year ago.
“The type of measles the woman died of “matched the outbreak in the local county here, but that outbreak strain was not a match for the Disney outbreak”, he said”.
According to the USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 178 people from 24 states and the District were reported to have measles from January 1 through June 26 of this year.
The last United States death from measles was in 2003.
Moyer said measles is highly communicable and when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs, it spreads.
It was not immediately clear whether the woman had been immunized against measles, though the agency noted that people with compromised immune systems often cannot be vaccinated.
“You should get your kids vaccinated – it’s good for them”, the president said.
The Washington woman lacked some of the measles’ common symptoms, such as a rash, so the infection wasn’t discovered until an autopsy, department spokesman Donn Moyer said.
Others in this condition include people with leukemia or those getting some cancer treatments, Schuchat said. Adults born after 1956 should have at least one measles vaccination; some people need two. The last measles case was reported in Washington in late April this year.
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The news from Washington comes as California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a law making vaccinations mandatory for children in California schools, removing a previous option that allowed parents to seek an exemption on religious and personal belief grounds. Within about three weeks of exposure to someone with measles, it is possible to develop the disease. Any one case of measles can infect on average 18 other unvaccinated/unprotected people; the equivalent number for HIV is 4, and for Ebola is 2.
