An unvaccinated 39-year-old woman in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, became the sixth person to die from the highly contagious virus amid an outbreak that has struck more than a thousand people since it began in April.
The woman died on Saturday October 10. She had several underlying health conditions and had recently tested positive for measles, according to a notice posted on social media by Franklin County Coroner Jordan Conner. The notice says the woman’s death meets the state health department’s definition of a measles death.
In an emailed statement to The Washington Post, the coroner’s office said the primary cause of death was “a probable acute cardiac event due to possible complications of measles.”
The previous five deaths during the state’s measles outbreak included a newborn, a 6-week-old child, an 18-year-old man, a 20-year-old man and a 40-year-old man. Not all of the deceased were vaccinated; both infants were too young to have been vaccinated.
According to the latest measles update from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, as of Friday, October 9, there have been 1,136 cases in the state since the beginning of the year, of which 1,124 are due to the current outbreak. A total of 218 people were hospitalized. The outbreak, which now extends to 41 of the state’s 67 counties, shows no signs of slowing. In the previous week alone, 157 new cases were reported.
Gn Health
