Traveler at Japan’s Kansai International Airport confirmed infected with measles, caution urged

If you were at Osaka’s major international airport earlier this month, you’ll want to keep an eye on your physical condition for the next few weeks.

On February 14, a resident of Aichi Prefecture began to feel hot. Unfortunately, this was not the result of romantic feelings swelling inside the woman because it was Valentine’s Day, but the onset of measles symptoms.

In addition to a fever, the woman eventually developed a rash, cough, and intestinal inflammation, leading to a medical examination in which her measles infection was confirmed and announced by the Osaka Prefectural government on February 21. The woman, who is in her 20s and had received measles vaccinations twice at some point in her life, is now hospitalized and undergoing recovery treatment, but what makes the situation still concerning is that prior to her diagnosis she appears to have traveled overseas via Kansai Airport, one of Japan’s largest international air hubs.

On February 14, the woman took an airline-operated highway bus from Nagoya Staton in Aichi to Kansai Airport, departing at around noon and arriving at approximately 3:30 p.m. She then spent the next two and a half hours inside the airport’s Terminal 1, which is used for both domestic and international flights. The infection announcement states that the woman “had traveled to Vietnam” prior to her diagnosis, which would account for why she was back in Kansai Airport’s Terminal 1 a week later on February 21, from about 4 to 6 in the evening. She then traveled to the Hatago Inn Kansai Airport, a hotel in Izumisano City just across the water from the island which makes up the airport, where she stayed at the hotel from about 10:30 p.m. until noon the next day.

This is Osaka Prefecture’s second confirmed case of measles infection this year, with the other, seemingly by coincidence, also announced on February 21. In an apparently unrelated case, a girl (whose age has been given as “under 10 years old”) was diagnosed with measles after developing a fever, cough, and rash. The child has no history of measles vaccination, and contact tracing efforts determined she was at the Lalaport Kadoma/Mitsui Outler Park Osaka Kadoma shopping center in Kadoma City on the evening of February 15 for roughly 40 minutes from about 5 p.m., and at the Hanaten branch of drugstore Matsumoto Kiyoshi in Osaka City on February 17 from approximately 6:10 to 6:50 p.m.

After infection, it can take as much as three weeks for measles symptoms to show, so health officials are urging anyone who happened be travelling through Kansai Airport or staying or shopping at the other above-mentioned locations on the specified dates to pay close attention to their physical condition over the next few weeks and consult a doctor if they begin to feel feverish or develop a cough or rash.

Source: MBS News (1, 2) via Livedoor News via Otakomu
Top image: Pakutaso
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