When you suspect you or someone in your family might have measles, your natural instinct might be to go to the hospital emergency room. However, that’s not the thing to do. In fact, measles are so contagious that showing up at the ER puts others at risk of getting it, so health officials advise you to contact your primary care physician to ask what to do.
Five measles cases have been confirmed in Allegheny County, where the health department continues to monitor the situation and investigate where the family of the infected people went during their visit to Pittsburgh.
The state Health Department has issued a release on measles. It reads,
“Measles is a highly contagious but vaccine-preventable disease that spreads through coughing, sneezing or other contact with the mucus or saliva of an infected person. Symptoms typically appear 1 to 3 weeks after infection and include: rash; high fever; cough; and red, watery eyes.
According to Centers for Disease Prevention and Control those most at-risk are:
- Infants less than one year of age who are too young to have received the MMR vaccine;
- Individuals who refused vaccination; and
- Individuals from parts of the world where there is low vaccination coverage or circulating measles.
Additionally, even if you were vaccinated, you may still be at risk if you were vaccinated with an inactivated vaccine, which was used from 1963 through 1967, and have not been revaccinated; or you were born after 1957 and have only received one dose of MMR vaccine.”
