Death of measles: the third victim was a heart transplant

Bordeaux – The third dead victim of measles this year, a 16-year-old girl, had been grafted from the heart to 2.5 years and could not be vaccinated because of antirejection treatments, explained her mother Tuesday in France Blue Gascony.
  

" At the age of 2, she was getting very tired and I was diagnosed with a vital prognosis ," explained Sylvie Eraville, the mother of the young Marine. " Without a new heart she would not have survived ".

Grafted patients must take immunosuppressive therapy for life to avoid rejection of the new organ. These treatments, which lower their immune defenses, prevent them from being vaccinated against measles, hence the importance that people around them are, so as not to transmit the disease.

The death of the girl was announced Friday. We do not know how she contracted this very contagious disease.

For his mother it is also a second death for the donor of the heart of the girl. " Today, it is not only Marine who leaves, but there is also the donor ," said his mother, according to which the teenager had participated in the World Transplant Games in 2013 , 2015 and 2017, with gold medals in swimming and table tennis.

The first signs of a deterioration of Marine Eraville's health appeared in May. The girl was hospitalized at the Bordeaux University Hospital and finally died of neurological complications, according to France Bleu Gascogne.

Before her, a man also immunodepressed was swept away by measles on June 9 in Marseille, the day before his 26 years.

According to the newspaper Var Matin, this man, named Julien, had been suffering from an immune deficiency since his birth and had had a kidney transplant five years ago.

Its history " illustrates the need for high immunization coverage, especially to prevent those who can not be vaccinated from being affected by a life-threatening disease for them ", then reacted Renaloo kidney transplant badociation.

The first death of measles of the year took place on February 10 in Poitiers. She was a 32-year-old mother who had never been vaccinated and who contracted the virus while driving her father to the emergency room.