Officials Warn of Measles Exposure at Shakira's New Jersey Concert

The New Jersey Health Department is out with an alert saying that anyone who attended the Shakira concert on Thursday night at MetLife Stadium could have been exposed to measles.

via: People

A concert-goer attended a recent Shakira concert while infectious with measles, traveling from out-of-state to the singer’s recent stadium show in New Jersey.

The New Jersey Department of Health issued a warning May 20 alerting residents of “a newly identified case of measles in a non-NJ resident who attended a concert in NJ while infectious.”

The sickened individual attended Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour on May 15, and the agency warned that anyone who was at MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, between the hours of 7:30 pm until 1 am, could have been exposed. As the U.S. Centers for DIsease Control points out, the virus is spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes; the virus stays in the air for up to two hours.

The show was sold out, and MetLife Stadium has a capacity of more than 82,000 people.

Although the NJDOH notes that at this time,  no new cases have been associated with attendance at the show, symptoms could develop as late as June 6.

According to the most recent data from the CDC, there have been 1,024 confirmed cases of measles across 14 outbreaks this year. The majority of cases are in children, with 303 cases in children under 5, and 388 cases in kids between ages 5 and 19.

The CDC says 96% of those sickened are unvaccinated, or their vaccine status is unknown. The agency says best protection against the wildly contagious illness is “two doses of the MMR vaccine” — which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. The first dose is administered between 12 and 15 months of age; the second shot comes between 4 and 6 years.

However, some adults may not remember getting the shots — or if they were born before 1957, traditional guidelines considered them immune. Measles was so widespread before the vaccine's introduction in 1963, medical professionals assume most people were exposed to it, resulting in some immunity.

Measles “isn’t just a little rash,” the CDC says, warning that it can be “dangerous,” especially for babies and young children. One in 5 people who get the virus will be hospitalized, with symptoms including high fever, a cough, red, runny eyes and nose.

It can cause “cause severe health complications,” the CDC says, including pneumonia, encephalitis (swelling of the brain), and death.

Three people have died in the U.S. from the measles so far this year.

Multiple large-scale studies have found that vaccines are safe. There is no scientific link between vaccines and autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control.