Officials: New California case of measles involved traveler

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A person who returned to California from overseas was infected with measles, health officials said Tuesday, emphasizing the traveler was not connected to other cases that prompted quarantines involving hundreds of people at two Los Angeles universities.

The latest case involved someone who arrived Tuesday at Los Angeles International Airport, according to the county Department of Public Health.

The person, who was not identified, is the sixth Los Angeles County resident to contract measles so far this year and one of more than 700 nationwide.

Word of the latest case came as California State University, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Los Angeles, announced that nearly all of the nearly 800 total students and staff members who recently came in contact with infected students had been released from quarantine.

No quarantines were announced in the latest case, but officials warned that people who were in the airport's international terminal or a nearby parking area on Tuesday afternoon may have come in contact with the infected person.

Contact also might have occurred Friday morning at a Home Depot store in suburban Lancaster.

Measles symptoms include runny nose, fever and a red-spotted rash. Most people recover, but measles can lead to pneumonia, brain swelling and even death in some cases.

Vaccinations administered in two doses are 97 percent effective, say health officials, who blame the increasing spread of the disease in recent years on people who are not vaccinated.

Seventy people were still quarantined at Cal State-LA on Tuesday and 27 at UCLA.

The UCLA quarantine was set to expire at the end of the day and at Cal State-LA on Thursday.

Those already released had been vaccinated or were immune because they previously had the disease.