[ad_1]
A flight attendant in Israel is in a coma after catching measles, according to reports in the press.
Israeli health authorities told CNN that the 43-year-old woman was suffering from encephalitis or inflammation of the brain and had been living in a "deep coma" for 10 days. She is unable to breathe on her own and is on a respirator.
The measles virus, although better known for its revealing rash, can lead to serious complications. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these complications are more common in children under 5 years of age and adults over 20 years of age.
The CDC reports that the most common serious complication of measles is pneumonia: up to one in 20 children with measles has pneumonia, making it the most common cause of death.
Encephalitis, which affects one in every 1,000 children with measles, is much rarer, according to the CDC.
The flight attendant had been vaccinated against measles; However, according to CNN, she had only received one dose of the vaccine. Health officials had begun recommending that children receive two doses of the vaccine only in 1989, when it was discovered that one dose was more than 90% effective in measles prevention, but two doses were 97% effective.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Safety in Baltimore, had previously told Live Science that adults who received only a single dose of measles vaccine as a child might consider to receive a second dose.
Health officials said that the place where the flight attendant, who works for the Israeli airline El Al, had contracted the disease is still unknown. It may have been in New York or Israel – there are ongoing epidemics in both places – or on board a flight. Officials do not believe that she transmitted the virus to anyone on the plane.
Originally published on Science live.
[ad_2]
Source link
