Measles Outbreak In U.S. Airports

A simple immunization can protect you against measles your entire life (news.sky.com/skynews)

U.S. Airports freak out after woman who visited 4 of them this weekend was diagnosed with measles.

Although measles is not such a big scare, most people, especially adults (in which the disease may complicate a bit) tend to freak out when they hear about it. People who have had the disease as kids should not worry about the “upcoming epidemic,” neither should those who had their vaccines when they were teenagers. The United States has thoroughly fought against the disease and complications have not been a problem for a very long time. Still, officials say that the turn out for those who were infected with the virus may be fatal.

The woman who traveled from Europe (it is known that Europe is famous for its outburst of the disease) to four different Airports in the United States became sick and when she went to the doctor’s she was told she had measles. Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that airport officials are trying to let all people who were close to the woman, who sat next to her or who had contact with her about the misfortune. According to the New Mexico Department of Health’s scientific laboratory division, the 27-year old woman had not been vaccinated against measles. “The appropriate steps are being taken to reach out to those passengers on the plane that were in close enough proximity,” Skinner said, referring to the people who sat five rows in front or behind the woman who was bearing the virus.

However, it seems that most Americans have been immunized against measles and most people should not worry about a thing, but the problem is about little babies and maybe pregnant women, who are more at risk than anyone else. According to Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, the fact that the woman wandered around being infected, especially in places which are at all times filled with people, is a cause of concern, given that the virus is “highly communicable” and, as written earlier, it can be associated with complications leading to death. He went on saying that “We don’t want measles to be imported back into the U.S. once it gets a foothold.”

Even better, it seems that according to a 2008 CDC report, the risk of getting measles by air travel in America is very low, given the immunity to the virus the United States’ population has. So why the big fuss? Plus, sporadic cases of measles have also been seen in the past years, given that most people who travel to Europe are not immunized and when they come back, they come back infected. But complications have not been happening for a very long time now, because of measles.

For those who don’t know, the disease is highly contagious and it has the following symptoms: fever, runny nose, cough, red and watery eyes and a body rash. If you have these symptoms, you should rapidly present yourself to a doctor, because the infection can lead to ear infections and even pneumonia in children. Still, measles being the cause of death is very rare.

Anyway, the good news is that health officials are doing anything in their power to stop the spreading of the virus, but if you know you have been immunized against it, you should not worry about a thing.11