Lane County Public Health officials suspect a Eugene man in his early 20s recently had measles, and they are warning those who came into contact with the man may be at risk for the disease if they aren’t vaccinated.
Measles is a highly contagious airborne disease, and symptoms include a cough, fever and rash, according to the state Department of Human Services. Those who have not been vaccinated against the disease can catch it.
The patient suspected of having measles is not a University student. He returned to Eugene from Japan last week and may have exposed passengers on his flights.
Passengers on United Airlines Flight 6406 from San Francisco to Eugene on May 22 may have been exposed to measles, said Dr. Sarah Hendrickson, who works for Lane County Public Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to contact passengers on the man’s continental and overseas flights. The flight number from Japan to the U.S. wasn’t released Thursday.
When the man arrived to Eugene, he stayed at home because he felt ill, and did not attend public events, said Martha deBroekert, a lead nurse for Lane County Public Health.
The patient was admitted to the progressive cardiac unit at Sacred Heart Medical Center on May 26 and stayed there about 24 hours, said hospital spokesman Brian Terrett.
He said visitors and patients who spent more than four hours in the progressive cardiac unit or the mother-baby unit on May 26 or 27 are at risk. The units share an air vent.
Sacred Heart administrators have contacted 36 patients and 63 employees who may have been in contact with the man and offered employees and patients a free, three-hour immunity test, Terrett said. Three hospital employees, including one doctor, have been placed on paid administrative leave because they weren’t immune.
Terrett said he fears visitors to the hospital last weekend have not yet been contacted.
Terrett said the hospital has no computerized records of visitors. “That’s the biggest challenge,” he said.
Public health officials stressed the majority of people are immune to measles, but wanted to warn the public about the suspected case.
Children are typically vaccinated with a first dose from ages 12 to 15 months and receive a second dose from ages 4 to 6, said deBroekert. The second dose is not a booster vaccine.
“The second dose is more an insurance against disease,” deBroekert said, adding 95 percent of those who get just one shot alone are immune.
University Health Center Director Tom Ryan said the University requires all students to have two doses of the measles vaccine, but students can decline to do so for religious or medical reasons.
“Those students may not be immune to measles,” Ryan said. He estimated 400 students don’t have the vaccine.
Those born before 1957 are immune because they probably had the disease, Ryan said.
Lane County saw a measles outbreak in 1990 when a teenager traveled to Japan and returned to the area with measles, deBroekert said. The county saw more than 60 cases of measles, and no one died.
Terrett said Sacred Heart may require employees to be vaccinated in the future.
“Given this incident, this is really something we’ll have to look at as a standard in the future,” he said.
If more cases are reported, Terrett said employees will check patients and visitors for symptoms at the door so the disease isn’t spread.
“When we have an emergency room or a physician’s office and we take all comers, we always run the possibility that someone will walk in with a highly contagious disease,” Terrett said.
Hendrickson said the incident could have been prevented with a vaccination.
“This is an incredibly hassle-filled and time consuming process, not to mention expensive, at a time when the county can least afford to spend more money dealing with the consequences of someone who thought this just wasn’t important,” Hendrickson said.
She said she hopes nobody else has been exposed.
“I don’t want to have to deal with a second or third wave of measles,” Hendrickson said. “Public Health probably couldn’t. Our staff simply isn’t large enough.”
The unidentified man is at home and is no longer contagious, Hendrickson said.
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