Measles growing fatal: A woman died in Washington

The Washington State Department of Health has confirmed on Thursday that it is the first case of such death in USA since 2003.

“This should have been a preventable death, and I think her death is a tragedy”, said Dr. Mark Schleiss, professor of pediatrics and director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Minnesota. While the woman, who most likely could not of been vaccinated due to her compromised immune system, did not die of measles outright, officials highlighted the death as an example of how important vaccinations are. The last active case of the measles was recorded in late April of this year.

According to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 178 people who caught measles from January 1 to June 26 in 24 USA states.

Measles is highly contagious and easily transmitted but it is rarely fatal. He said that measles is very contagious and can spread from coughing or sneezing by an infected person, however, dying from the infection is very rare.

Before the widespread use of a vaccine against measles, its incidence was so high that infection with measles was felt to be “as inevitable as death and taxes.”[7] Reported cases of measles in the United States fell from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands per year following introduction of the vaccine in 1963.

The officials said that the infected woman was hospitalised for various health conditions in an institution in Callam County. “Even when vaccinated, they may not have a good immune response when exposed to disease; they may be especially vulnerable to disease outbreaks”.

The bill generated staunch opposition from some parents, many of whom feared a now-debunked link between childhood vaccines and autism and others who objected to what they saw as an intrusion on their religious faith.

“This tragic situation illustrates the importance of immunizing as many people as possible to provide a high level of community protection against measles”, Moyer said.

According to National Geographic, the woman deceased from measles was vaccinated.

This week, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a hotly contested bill to impose one of the strictest school vaccination laws in the country.

This isn’t the first case of the measles in this county, however.