Israeli air hostess in coma after catching measles

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The 43-year-old woman suffers from encephalitis or inflammation of the brain, a well-known and potentially deadly complication of the virus. She was otherwise healthy before contracting measles.

"She has been in deep coma for 10 days and we now hope for the best," said Dr. Itamar Grotto, Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Health.

The flight attendant, who works for El Al, Israel's national airline, may have contracted the virus in New York, Israel or on a flight between the two, Grotto said. The health authorities did not think it was transmitting the virus to anyone on board the flights.

She is unable to breathe alone and with a respirator in the intensive care unit of the Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, near Tel Aviv.

She developed a fever on March 31 and entered the hospital the same day.

The measles epidemics underway in the United States and Israel began with parents who chose not to vaccinate their children, according to the health authorities. Authorities believe that the flight attendant has been vaccinated child, but the vaccine is not perfect and, in his case, it did not work.

"I knew it would happen sooner or later," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University and an advisor to the US Centers for Vaccine Control and Disease Prevention. "We are witnessing the reintroduction of a serious viral infection in a population that refuses the vaccine to their children and is spreading beyond this population."

A non-optimal dose of vaccine

Like many other members of her generation around the world, the air hostess, who has not been identified, has received only one dose of the measles vaccine when she was a child.

It was discovered that later that a dose had an efficiency of about 93%. More recently – in the United States, starting in 1989 – children received two doses, representing an efficiency of about 97%, according to the CDC.
What you need to know about measles as the virus spreads across the country

It is unclear why most people who contract measles recover completely, while others suffer devastating complications.

According to the CDC, about 1 in 1,000 children with measles will develop encephalitis. This can lead to convulsions and leave a deaf child or an intellectual disability.

In addition, 1 or 2 out of every 1,000 American children with measles will die. Worldwide, the disease is fatal in 1 or 2 in every 100 children.
In the United States, there have been no reports of measles deaths this year or last year. In Israel, an infant and an elderly woman died of the disease last year. In the European Union, 35 people died of the disease in 2018, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Measles in Israel

There were 3,920 cases of measles in Israel from March 2018 to April 11, said Grotto, who is also a professor of epidemiology and public health at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

In the United States, there have been fewer than 1,000 cases in the same period or so.
In Europe, 34,383 cases of measles were reported to the World Health Organization from April to April of this year.

Ukraine has recorded the highest number of cases in the last 12 months, with more than 72,000, followed by Madagascar and India with more than 69,000 and 60,000 cases, respectively. The WHO warned that there were delays in reports and that these data might be incomplete.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, including many from Israel, gathered in Uman, Ukraine, in September on a religious pilgrimage. Ukraine registered more than 72,000 cases of measles last year.
Grotto said that there was a resurgence of cases in Israel last fall when a large number of ultra-Orthodox Israelis went to Ukraine to perform a religious pilgrimage during the new Jewish year. According to the World Health Organization, Ukraine has registered more than 72,000 cases of measles this year, more than any other country.

About 85% to 90% of Israeli measles cases were registered among ultra-Orthodox Jews, Grotto said.

There is nothing in Judaism that teaches against vaccination; on the contrary, rabbis encourage vaccination according to the Jewish teachings on the protection of your health and that of others.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews tend to have large families and Grotto explained that those who do not vaccinate tend to have practical and non-ideological reasons.

"Sometimes they vaccinate their first or second child, but with so many children, they do not always have the time to vaccinate them all," he said. "They are not against vaccines, they have nothing against them ideologically."

To reverse the trend, Israeli public health authorities have extended the number of consultations in vaccine clinics, opened mobile clinics in religious neighborhoods, and published advertisements in religious community newspapers.

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