Measles Epidemic Claims 1st Local Death : Public health: A Santa Ana infant has become the first county resident to die in the measles outbreak, even while the spread of the disease seems to be subsiding.

Although Orange County’s measles epidemic seems to be waning, a 7-month-old Santa Ana boy has become the first county resident to die from the current outbreak, a top county health official said Tuesday.

Another six residents also have contracted the viral infection so far this year, five of them from a church group whose tenets forbid immunization, county epidemiologist Thomas J. Prendergast said.

Still, although the pace of infection has lessened markedly--only four cases in December, contrasted with at least 20 or 30 a month earlier last year--the county’s 21-month-long epidemic is far from over, Prendergast warned Tuesday. “We’re still seeing transmission” of measles here, he said.

A key state health official agreed, adding that the disease, is not on the wane elsewhere. “Our worst measles epidemic in a decade” is continuing with major outbreaks in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Fresno counties, said Dr. Loring Dales, chief of the immunization unit for the state Department of Health Services.

California saw the disease grow to epidemic proportions in October, 1987. The outbreak struck Orange County in May, 1988.

Around the nation, there are still major outbreaks in Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania, Dales added.

The first measles-related death of an Orange County resident occurred last Wednesday night at UCI Medical Center in Orange when little Jose Herrera died of encephalitis and pneumonia.

UCI doctors said the infant’s fatal complications were directly attributable to his severe case of measles.

The boy’s parents “took him into the hospital appropriately. But his lung disease kept getting worse,” said Dr. Alan Davis, the medical center’s director of pediatric intensive care.

The baby was too young to have been immunized against measles, doctors noted.

Said Dr. Peter Graves, a UCI fellow in pediatrics who also treated Jose: “I’ve seen older kids come in with measles, but the real young ones come in and they’re just devastated. There’s a real difference between 6 months and 6 years” in a child’s ability to fight off an infection such as measles.

Jose Herrera Sr., 26, who works at a San Juan Capistrano nursery, said he and his wife, Riena Ramirez Herrera, 20, buried their only child Tuesday. Friends chipped in for funeral expenses, he said.

The boy’s father said his wife had noticed in late December that the baby was very ill. “She said, ‘Come. Come over here and see the baby!’ He was very sick and I took him (to the hospital) right away,” he said. Initially admitted to Coastal Community Hospital, the child eventually was transferred to UCI.

Jose Herrera Sr. said he already has been warning other parents about the danger of measles. “I was telling people that when your baby has a high fever and red spots, take him right away to the doctors or the hospital.”

County epidemiologist Prendergast said that after nearly two years of watching measles cases mount, he was not surprised by the death of an Orange County resident.

“It’s a tragic thing when it happens,” he said. “But it’s unavoidable if you have 400, 500 cases.”

Orange County recorded 388 measles cases in 1989 alone, the highest total since 1977.

Actually, another measles death occurred in Orange County when an 11-month-old boy died last July from complications of measles after he was transferred to Childrens Hospital of Orange County from Pomona Valley Hospital.

Because his family was from Pomona, his death was recorded with Los Angeles County measles statistics.

Speaking briefly about her baby’s death last year, Bobbie Owens said Tuesday that 11-month-old Nathan Timothy was just beginning to walk when he developed a high fever and, several days later, a rash.

Nathan developed severe encephalitis as well as pneumonia. Despite “very aggressive treatment,” he died from respiratory failure, CHOC infection-control coordinator Abby Rubenstein said.

Nathan had been scheduled to get his measles shot but caught the disease a week before the appointment. Owens said her son’s case “was just bad timing. He just happened to catch it (measles) before he got the shot.”

“If I could, I’d like to help somebody else’s child. . . ,” Owens said. “People should go and have their kids immunized.”

Acting on recommendations from county health officials and the American Academy of Pediatrics, Orange County doctors for the last year have been immunizing children earlier--at 12 months instead of the previously recommended 15 months. Also, because of the national measles epidemic, the Academy of Pediatrics and federal health officials have recommended that young people receive a second measles shot--either as they enter junior high school or college.

Measles, also known as red measles or rubeola, is a highly infectious disease. Although it can be mild--starting with fever, cough, watery eyes and causing a rash about four days after the first symptoms--its complications include ear infections, bronchitis, pneumonia and, rarely, encephalitis.

In 1989, 2,900 Californians were hospitalized with measles and at least 17 people died, most of them preschool-age children, state immunization chief Dales said.

In Orange County, the disease is being transmitted in several ways, Prendergast said.

Five of the six Orange County residents who became ill with measles this month are members of a church group which holds that immunizations violate their beliefs, he said.

A minister for the group told county health officials Tuesday that he did not want to be interviewed and asked county officials not to reveal his denomination.

Another path for transmission, Prendergast said, has been through young Latinos, many of whom are recent arrivals to the United States from Mexico, where measles are also prevalent.

Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this report.