Passengers on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Dublin have been urged to self-monitor for symptoms of measles following confirmation of another case of the potentially fatal disease onboard.
It is the third recent case of the infection in Ireland, including one fatality, and has sparked renewed appeals to the public to seek vaccinations.
The latest case, confirmed by the HSE on Tuesday, was detected onboard Etihad Airways flight EY45 which arrived in Dublin at 6.30am last Saturday.
Pregnant women, as well as immunocompromised passengers and those with infants under the age of 12 months, have been urged to make immediate contact with the HSE or Department of Public Health.
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Dr Sam McConkey, specialist in infectious disease at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said public health professionals had been expecting further cases and the introduction of measles to Ireland was now almost inevitable.
“Of all the infectious viruses that we know about, measles is among the most infectious,” he said, adding that between 10 and 20 per cent of the population, varying on a county and subgroup level, were not immune.
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The infection causes a HIV/Aids-like temporary paralysis of the immune system, he explained, which can prove fatal, as per a recent case in the midlands.
“There has been an upsurge of measles cases in places like the UK and there’s a huge amount of travel from the UK to Ireland … so it’s almost inevitable that measles will be introduced in Ireland and unfortunately our vaccination rates have dropped a little bit,” he said.
A HSE measles national incident management team has been established in response to the disease’s resurgence in the UK and Europe.
Recent cases in Ireland included a man in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, who died last month having contracted the disease in Birmingham, England, and a teenager in the west of Ireland diagnosed last week. There have been nine other suspected cases.
Passengers onboard the Abu Dhabi flight have been advised to look out for symptoms until the end of the month. These vary and include runny nose, sneezing and cough, as well as sore red eyes, a temperature of 38 degrees or above, and a rash initially in the head and neck area.
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