A 40-year-old Pennsylvania woman who died Saturday morning with what appears to be measles-related complications also had ongoing lung problems, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, according to the coroner’s office that handled the case.“She did have a pretty extensive medical history,” said Jason Stiver, chief deputy coroner and public relations officer for Jefferson County.
“She was on oxygen 24/7.” The woman, Stiver said, was pronounced dead in her home just before 8 a.m.Saturday.
She hadn’t been vaccinated against measles.State health officials are conducting tests to confirm the woman was indeed infected with measles, Stiver said.
Those results are expected within the next day or so, but early signs suggest the results are likely to be positive.The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is 97% effective in preventing measles infection, experts say.
Joe Raedle / Getty ImagesThe woman had symptoms of measles, including a fever and the telltale rash, Stiver said, and was living in a house with other people who had the same measles symptoms.She also had direct contact with another family member in a different household who had been “laboratory tested and confirmed” to have measles, Stiver said.It would be the third death in the state amid a surging outbreak of the virus.
Two infants, according to the Lancaster County coroner, died last month of measles-related complications.One baby died at birth after his mother, also infected with measles, went into labor a month early.
As of Monday, 693 cases had been confirmed in the state this year, 99 of them in the last week alone.The latest situation is a prime example of how the virus can be deadly in people with underlying health problems.
Once measles begins circulating in the body, it can attack multiple organs, including the lungs and the heart.In very rare cases, an infection can result in a dangerous and almost always fatal brain condition called subacute sclerosing pa...