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By Ari Feldman April 3, 2019

A flight attendant for El Al, Israel’s national carrier, was hospitalized with measles Wednesday after contracting the disease on a flight from New York to Tel Aviv last week, the Times of Israel reported.

The woman, who news reports said had been vaccinated, is unconscious and on a respirator. Israel’s Health Ministry has warned people who took El Al Flight 002 — which departed New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport on March 26 — to seek medical care if they developed any measles symptoms, which can include a fever and a rash.

Israel has been rocked with a massive measles outbreak since last year, racking up over 3,600 cases in 2018. New York State is also seeing historic measles outbreaks among the ultra-Orthodox population, with over 214 cases recorded in Brooklyn’s Hasidic communities and over 153 in Hasidic communities in the suburban Rockland County area.

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Measles vaccines are highly effective. One immunization as an infant gives a person 95% immunity, while a second, booster, dose, often administered to children from ages four to six, offers 99% immunity, according to Dr. Jennifer Lighter, a pediatric epidemiologist with New York University’s Langone hospital system.

Yeshiva World News noted in its report on the sickened El Al flight attendant that leading rabbis in Monsey, a Hasidic enclave in Rockland County, had recently signed a letter urging parents in their community to vaccinate their children.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

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