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The University of California-Davis Children's Hospital reportedly told at least 200 patients that they may have recently been exposed to measles after a girl with symptoms of the highly infectious virus arrived.
Dr. Dean Blumberg, who is head of pediatric infectious diseases at the hospital, told NBC News Thursday that the 7-year-old girl who had been brought to the emergency two weeks ago was presenting "some symptoms of measles, but not the typical characteristics of measles in textbooks. "
"Measles at first, looks a lot like a lot of respiratory viruses associated with the community," said Blumberg.
She said the virus may start in some children with "fever, runny nose, runny eyes and coughing. And before the characteristic rash develops, it can sometimes be very difficult to diagnose.
Blumberg said the girl went to the hospital emergency department on March 17 and was "suspected of having measles on March 19".
"At that time, the patient had been placed in appropriate isolation," she added.
According to the doctor, most cases of the virus occur within eight to 12 days of exposure, but some are "up to three weeks after exposure".
"Even vaccinated people can get measles because the vaccine is not 100% perfect. We need a very high vaccination rate because when measles cases are introduced into communities whose parents do not immunize their children, these clusters of cases can occur, "said Blumberg.
A report released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that there had been more cases of measles in the first three months of this year than during the past year .
The agency reported 387 cases of measles between 1 January and 28 March. Last year, there were 372 cases in total.
According to the agency, this year's figure is the second highest number of measles cases reported in the country since the announcement of the elimination of the disease in 2000. The measles outbreak occurs while vaccines elicit more and more shyness.
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