A woman from Washington State has died from measles, the first case of death from the contagious illness in the U.S. after more than 10 years, health officials announced Thursday.
According to a statement from the state Department of Health, the woman may have contracted the illness from a local medical facility during the time of an outbreak at Clallam County.
Donn Moyer, spokesman for the Washington State Department of Health, told reporters that the woman was also taking medications that contributed to the decline of her immune system.
Some of the medications she took would prevent her immune system from responding to any kind of infection, Moyer said.
According to Peninsula Daily News, the woman was then transferred to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, where she was pronounced dead.
No one knew that the woman carried the contagious illness, but a later autopsy had revealed she had the virus. The cause of death of the unidentified woman was pneumonia from measles, officials said.
Clallam County experienced a minor outbreak of measles early this year, but officials did not tie this to the 2014 Disneyland outbreak.
According to officials, the "tragic situation" serves as an important example of how vaccinations can help protect the community from measles.
However, as in the woman's case, people who don't have healthy immune systems may still be susceptible to measles despite having received vaccinations.
Measles is deadly and very infectious even before symptoms, like rash, start to appear. The disease spreads easily if an infected person coughs, sneezes or breathes.
"If you're not protected, you can get measles just by walking into a room where someone with the disease has been in the past couple of hours," the statement said.
Health officials recommend that anyone eligible for the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) should get their shots to receive protection and also help protect families and the community.
