El Al Flight Attendant Who Contracted Measles In New York Passed Away

Rotem Amitai, the El Al flight attendant who contracted measels on a flight from New York on March 26, passed away Tuesday after spending four months in a coma.

She was forty three years old.

An excerpt from the New York Post last April reported that Amitai suffered from encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain caused by viruses such as rabies, bacteria, fungi or parasites.

Associate Director General of Israel's Ministry of Health Dr. Itamar Grotto said in an interview that the flight attendant has been in a “deep coma for 10 days.”

Amitai had been healthy prior to contracting measles.

She was admitted to Meir Medical Center shortly after developing “several symptoms associated with the virus.” Amitai was then transferred to the Intensive Care Unit facility of the Rabin Medical Center-Belinson Campus in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv after her condition worsened.

Amitai had been vaccinated as a child but had received “only one dose.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a dose will only up the vaccine's effectivity to about 93%, while two doses will account for 97%.

Amitai's family described her as a “wonderful woman and devoted mother.”

Israel's Health Ministry said in a statement that the immediate cause of Amitai's death “was not defined as measles. Rather, it was the “disability (caused by) the disease was a secondary cause,” making her the third person to die from the virus in Israel in the past fifteen years, according to another source.

Dr. William Schaffner told CNN that he knew that something like this would happen “sooner or later.” The infectious disease specialist from Vanderbilt University added that measles is being reintroduced as a “serious viral infection” in the midst of a population that is witholding the vaccine from their children.

Grotto reiterated that between March 2018 and April 11, there have been a total of 3,920 reported cases of measles throughout Israel. During the same period, however, there have been fewer than a thousand cases in the United States. New York City posted 329 measles cases that mainly concentrated in Williamsburg and Borough Park. These accounted for around 59% of the 555 reported cases in the U.S. this year.

In light of Amitai's passing, the management of El Al Airlines has urged their flight attendants to get the recommended vaccine dosage.