Coroner releases details of infants who died amid growing Pennsylvania measles outbreak
The two measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania last month involved infants, and the virus itself caused one of the deaths, a Pennsylvania coroner confirmed Wednesday.
Lancaster County’s coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, said he told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of his conclusions. CDC officials, however, have not said whether they will count either death as measles-associated, and the agency’s website still carries a disclaimer about them.
Ivan Miller died on Aug. 14 shortly after his birth of a ruptured spleen, Diamantoni said.
https://apnews.com/article/measles-deaths-pennsylvania-infants-e8dc53eb687801720187a6cefb2ca392Open linkView original on lemmy.world
1 reply
So just to be clear, the CDC is not sure if the reason a person with almost no immune system (every infant) died from the highly contagious measles virus which causes a high fever, severe cough, runny nose, watery eyes, a rash that slowly covers the body which is then followed again by another high fever?
Maybe the issue is defining "cause". If the baby was diagnosed with pneumonia before they died then the CDC will probably say pneumonia was the cause of death even though the baby was suffering for a prolonged period of time with measles before any secondary illness started. Would they do the same if the baby was in the hospital for something unrelated and then caught measles at the hospital? I just need to clear things up.