Has Durbin heard about it?
A sick passenger arriving on an international flight last Wednesday may have exposed hundreds of travelers at Chicago O’Hare Airport to measles.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) told CBS Chicago that the passenger, who was contagious at the time, arrived at O’Hare Airport’s Terminal 5 and departed from Terminal 1 on a domestic flight.
Public health officials say all passengers who traveled through O’Hare between 6:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on January 10 have been exposed. Those most at risk for catching the disease are those who have not been vaccinated, officials say.
“Measles is a very contagious virus, and it can hang around in the air for up to an hour or two after a person has left,” University of Chicago Medicine’s Dr. Allison Bartlett told CBS News. “Certainly the people who were on the plane with this individual are at risk of getting the infection, but so are the other people who may have shared the same space with this person during this six-hour period that they were at O’Hare.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), symptoms can take seven to 14 days to develop, meaning many of the passengers exposed to the virus may not show symptoms until the end of the month.