EDITOR’S NOTE — This story has been corrected from its original transmission. The site of exposure was a community health center in Clallam County, not Olympic Medical Center, according to state Health spokesman Donn Moyer.
PORT ANGELES — A Clallam County woman who died of measles in the spring was the first confirmed measles death in the U.S. since 2003 and the first in Washington state since 1990.
The state Department of Health officials announced the death Thursday.
“Our deepest sympathy goes out to the family,” said Iva Burks, Clallam County health and human services director.
The woman, who was not identified, was exposed to measles at a community health center in Clallam County during a winter outbreak, state Health spokesman Donn Moyer said.
She was at the medical facility at the same time as a person who later developed a rash and was contagious for measles, Moyer said.
“She had an underlying disorder, an autoimmune disorder, and she was taking a number of different drugs to modulate the immune system,” said Dr. Jeanette Stehr-Green, interim Clallam County health officer, in a Thursday interview.
“Some of those medications would prevent her from mounting a good response to any infection.”
The woman was transferred to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, where she died.
She did not exhibit common symptoms of measles like a rash, so the infection wasn’t discovered until after her death.
An autopsy concluded the cause of death was pneumonia due to measles.
Although health officials are withholding the woman’s age, hometown and date of death, Stehr-Green did say the woman was a young adult who had been vaccinated for measles earlier in life.
The woman did not become immune, however, because of her medical condition.
“Clearly it’s a tragedy,” Stehr-Green said.
“The family, to lose a young person, they’ll never get over that. But probably equally sad is that this is a preventable disease.”
Health officials urge everyone who is eligible for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to get vaccinated to protect themselves, their families and vulnerable people.
Young children, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems cannot be vaccinated.
“If everybody around them is vaccinated and we’re not spreading measles in the community, these people would be protected,” Stehr-Green said.
“So to me that’s a huge tragedy. It was preventable by the community levels of immunization.”
Clallam County’s first case of measles this year was diagnosed Feb. 1. The outbreak was declared over in April after five people had been confirmed to have had the disease. All five recovered.
The latest measles diagnosis brings the state’s case count to 11 and six for Clallam County.
“I think it is very significant that it’s been 12 years since there was a confirmed (measles) death,” Burks said.
“That doesn’t mean there may not have been other deaths that were not confirmed.”
Measles is highly contagious even before a rash appears and spreads when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes.
A non-vaccinated person can catch measles by walking into a room where an infected person had been two hours earlier, health officials said.
Dying from the illness is extremely rare, Moyer said.
Since more than three weeks have passed since the last active measles case, no one who had contact with one of the known cases is at risk, Moyer told The Associated Press.
The Clallam County measles cases are not related to the measles outbreak at Disneyland, which began last December and sickened more than 140 in North America.
The Clallam County strain is seen around the world, most commonly in Southeast Asia, Stehr-Green said.
“We still don’t know how our original case got infected,” she said.
Children should be vaccinated with two doses of the vaccine, with the first dose between 12 and 15 months and the second between 4 to 6 years, health officials said.
Adults born after 1956 should have at least one measles vaccination.
Those born before 1956 are thought to be immune because of past exposure.
“The public health message is people need to get vaccinated,” Burks said, “if not for yourself, for your loved ones, for the children, for the elderly, for the immune-compromised people in the community.”
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
