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Health officials on Thursday confirmed the country's first measles death since 2003, and they believe the victim was most likely exposed to the virus in a health facility in Washington state during an outbreak there. The woman died in the spring; a later autopsy confirmed that she had an undetected measles infection, the Washington State Department of Health said in a statement. The official cause of death was announced as "pneumonia due to measles."
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 178 people from 24 states and the District were reported to have measles from Jan. 1 through June 26 of this year. Two-thirds of the cases, the CDC noted, were "part of a large multi-state outbreak linked to an amusement park in California."
Measles were effectively eliminated in the United States in 2000, according to the CDC. Health officials have said that the disease made a comeback recently, in part because of a growing number of adults deciding to delay or abstain from vaccinating their children. Last year brought the highest number of recorded measles cases since 2000, according to the CDC. Earlier this year, President Obama acknowledged the concerns some have about effects of vaccines but said: "The science is pretty indisputable." "You should get your kids vaccinated — it's good for them," Obama said. "We should be able to get back to the point where measles effectively is not existing in this country."
takyon: Celebrity critics recently denounced California's new mandatory vaccine law.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Sunday July 05 2015, @12:26AM
The woman was on medication that had weakened her immune system, Washington State Department of Health spokesman Donn Moyer told reporters.
She was hospitalised for several health conditions in the spring at a facility in Clallam County, Mr Moyer said.
"She was there at the same time as a person who later developed a rash and was contagious for measles," he added.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33373466 [bbc.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/health/us-measles-death/ [cnn.com]
Her case is an example of why herd immunity is important, even if measles isn't usually a problem for most people.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @01:02AM
Good catch. That also makes attributing this death to measles rather dubious. They say she died of pneumonia, was asymptomatic for measles, but they discovered it in her blood during autopsy. Even though she was asymptomatic for measles, they think it weakened her immune system. Now, it sounds like she was also on some medication that is known to weaken the immune system. It seems like a toss up to blame measles or the medication for the pneumonia death.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @03:02PM
All those years Oregon trail was telling me I died of Dysentery when it was really the Giardia. Damn MECC, damn you to hell!
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Sunday July 05 2015, @05:22PM
It seems like a toss up to blame measles or the medication for the pneumonia death.
Wake up! That's what measles does! People that get measles tend to die from, pneumonia.
http://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/complications.html [cdc.gov]
As many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children.
And measles makes regular pneumonia very deadly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles [wikipedia.org]
Complications with measles are relatively common, ranging from mild complications such as diarrhea to serious complications such as pneumonia (either direct viral pneumonia or secondary bacterial pneumonia), bronchitis, otitis media .... The death rate in the 1920s was around 30% for measles pneumonia
Measels make pneumonia very deadly, as you can hopefully see from historical data. It's only less deadly today because of antibiotics and better medical care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @11:44PM
I don't disagree with that, but you can make the same argument regarding whatever medication she was on since they say it was immuno-suppressive. It has the same effects. We need additional information to distinguish between the two explanations.