Israeli air hostess in coma after contracting measles

An airline hostess from the Israeli national airline is in a coma after contracting measles, which she might have caught in the Big Apple, according to a report.

Israeli health officials told CNN that El Al's 43-year-old flight attendant was now suffering from encephalitis, brain inflammation and complications. potentially deadly virus – that she could have contracted in New York, Israel or during a flight between the two. Locations.

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

The woman, who was in good health before getting measles, is now on a respirator in an intensive care unit in a hospital in Kfar Saba, near Tel Aviv. She was admitted to Meir Medical Center after developing a fever on March 31, according to CNN news.

The woman was vaccinated in her childhood but received only one dose, whose effectiveness is about 93%. Two doses of the vaccine – which began to be administered in the United States in 1989 – increase its effectiveness by about 97%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I knew it would happen sooner or later," Dr. William Schaffner, a specialist in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, told CNN. "We are witnessing the reintroduction of a serious viral infection in a population that refuses the vaccine to its children, and now it is spreading beyond this population."

According to Grotto, 3920 cases of measles were reported in Israel between March 2018 and 11 April. According to CNN, there were less than 1,000 in the United States during that same period.

Meanwhile, New York City has recorded 329 cases of measles, mostly in the orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn in Williamsburg and Borough Park. These diagnoses account for approximately 59% of the 555 cases in the United States this year.

On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio closed the Williamsburg-based United Talmudical Academy, after representatives refused to show students' vaccination records.