Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doct...

What’s Happening

Here’s the thing: As the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise.

(KFF Health News illustration; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; ) Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before By Andrew Jones Republish This Story ASHEVILLE, N. , 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. (and honestly, same)

Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms.

The Details

This story also ran on USA Today . It can be republished for free .

The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained News.

Why This Matters

Then two more hours ticked by. As the sun rose, an emergency room doctor called the state epidemiologist and described the symptoms. The public health official told him to keep the kids in the hospital and quarantine them.

Health experts are weighing in on what this means for people.

Key Takeaways

• Shortly after that call, the patients were diagnosed.
• Hospital staff gave the father instructions on how to quarantine the family and sent them home.
• The virus exposed at least 26 other people in the hospital that January day, federal investigators determined.

The Bottom Line

A spokesperson for Mission dropped its staff was trained to manage airborne sickness and is following federal rules. Hospitals face an increasing risk of encountering measles, and pressure to ASAP spot it, health care workers face an unusual barrier: Many don’t know what it looks like.

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