Jefferson County officials report a death related to a suspected case of measles

A suspected case of measles led to a Jefferson County woman’s death on Saturday, county coroner Greg Furlong has confirmed.

The 40-year-old woman was unvaccinated and developed telltale symptoms of an infection after known exposures, Furlong said in an interview Sunday. She also had underlying respiratory conditions that would make her particularly vulnerable to complications, he said.

Furlong, an elected Republican, said the woman died Saturday morning and that his office had reported the death to the state health department.

The state health department said in a statement they were aware of the coroner’s report and conducting a “thorough review” of the case.

“We are in touch with the coroner and appreciate his commitment to keeping the public informed,” the statement said. The department “will provide the public with updated information when it becomes available,” itsaid.

The woman’s death certificate lists her cause of death as “acute on chronic hypoxemic and hypercapnic respiratory failure” due to “suspected measles,” chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma, Furlong told The Inquirer.

The certificate also lists “supplemental oxygen dependence” as a “significant condition contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause.”

The woman also had hypertension and high cholesterol, Furlong said.

Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak so far this year has sickened 676 people and hospitalized 124. Two other deaths, reported by the state as measles-associated have led to a politically-charged dispute with federal health officials over the nature of the deaths.

Jefferson County has reported 26 measles cases so far this year.

Furlong said the woman had serious respiratory issues and used supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day.

Family members told the coroner she declined to be tested for measles before her death, but she had been exposed to several people with both confirmed and unconfirmed cases of the highly contagious disease, Furlong said.

She developed measles symptoms, including a rash and a fever, several days before her death, he said.

“‘Suspected’ means they had all the symptoms, all the signs, and they were exposed,” he said.

Furlong declined to name her.

Paul Offit, a physician and vaccine expert who heads the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Vaccine Education Center, said patients with respiratory conditions are at particular risk from measles.

“This person was particularly compromised, with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma,” he said. “That’s a person who could well die from this virus.”

Measles can linger in the air for up to two hours and infect up to nine in 10 unvaccinated people. Two doses of a measles vaccine are 97% effective at preventing the disease.

Nearly every reported case of measles in Pennsylvania this year has occurred among people who were not fully vaccinated, although on Friday state officials said they had identified four cases in people “appropriately vaccinated for their age.” These “breakthrough cases” tend to be milder and less likely to infect others.

The two deaths reported last month were Pennsylvania’s first in three decades associated with measles.

According to the health department’s website on Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak, the state defines a “measles-associated death” as one that occurs within 30 days of symptom onset in a person with clinical evidence of infection and a positive laboratory test.

The state also considers additional information on a case, including their medical records and whether a person was exposed to measles before their death.

Deaths without lab evidence of infection, deaths of people who have fully recovered from measles before death, and deaths from unrelated causes, like a car crash, are not counted as measles-associated.

In its latest update Friday, the CDC still had not listed two deaths reported by the state on its website highlighting data on ongoing measles outbreaks around the country.

State and federal officials have clashed over whether those deaths were tied to the state’s measles outbreak. In announcing the two deaths, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro criticized President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for spreading misinformation about vaccine safety through his longtime anti-vaccine activism. Kennedy then accused the state of “fabricating” the deaths, although he later acknowledged one had been caused by measles.

Lancaster County’s coroner has said he investigated one death caused by measles, in an infant with a severe genetic disorder, and another in an infant who contracted measles before birth and died shortly after.

The coroner, an elected Republican, has said he does not believe measles caused that child’s death, but rather a lacerated spleen, yet prominent physicians have noted measles can weaken a person’s spleen, putting it at risk of rupture.