FEBRUARY 04, 2019 03:30 AM, UPDATED 2 HOURS 33 MINUTES AGO
California’s public health officials are alerting doctors and other medical providers to be on the lookout for measles after first New York state and now nearby Washington state wrestle with a wily virus that health experts say can cause deafness and autism in its survivors.
“Most bacteria and viruses, you … have to breathe in a lot of those viruses to get sick, but with measles, it takes very few,” said Dr. Karen Smith, director of the California Department of Public Health. “That means almost everybody who gets exposed is likely to get sick. It also has a very high … attack rate, so when you are infected, you get sick.”
At least 43 people have caught the disease in Washington state and one more in neighboring Multnomah County, Ore. In New York, almost 210 people have had the illness since October.
Each person who gets measles can transmit it to up 12 to 18 people, said Dr. Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Medical Center. An infected person can have measles for up to five days before they show any symptoms, Smith said, and in that time, they are coughing the virus into the air or leaving it on surfaces with their hands.
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