A woman infected with measles may have exposed an entire movie theatre watching Avengers: Endgame to the virus, local news outlets have reported.
NBC reports that a woman believed to be in her 20s in Orange County, California accidentally contracted measles and then went for a midnight showing of the blockbuster Marvel film, highly anticipated among comic book fans around the globe.
Here is a trailer for Avengers: Endgame:The Orange County Health Care agency say that the woman visited an AMC theatre in Fullerton, Orange County on Thursday April 25, and anyone in that theatre between 11pm that night up till four o'clock the next morning may have been infected.
According to the LA Times, the woman accidentally contracted the disease while on holiday in a country where measles had broken out, and being unvaccinated, unwittingly brought the virus back to the United States, going to work for a few days and headed to see Avengers: Endgame, before realising she was sick.
Orange County officials declared an outbreak of the disease last week, telling as many as 1,000 students and staff members in the area to stay home. This comes as measles outbreaks skyrocket all across the country, with reported cases of measles being the highest they'd been in 20 years.
"Measles is a highly contagious and potentially severe disease that causes fever, rash, cough and red, watery eyes," explained Dr. Nichole Quick, Orange County interim health officer, in a statement, encouraging the public to get vaccinated as soon as possible. "The MMR vaccine is a simple, inexpensive and very effective measure to prevent the spread of this serious virus."
While measles is usually spread via coughing and sneezing, the virus can linger in the air for as long as two hours after an infected person has left the room, and it can take up to four days for symptoms of measles to become apparent.
Most reported cases of measles occur after Americans travel to other countries where measles is prevalent, bringing the disease back to America. In California alone, 14 of 38 people with measles this year contracted the disease while visiting one of India, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Ukraine.
State officials say that four of those people infected a further 22 people who weren't vaccinated.