CHILDREN’S HEALTH: MEASLES

April 28th, 2009 by admin

Symptoms: runny nose, red eyes, cough, fever, rash.

Home care:

Give aspirin for fever and a cough medication for severe cough.

Give the child extra liquids.

Bright light bothers (but does not injure) the eyes; keep the child out of brightly lit areas.

Precautions:

- A vaccine is available to prevent measles. Be sure that your child receives the proper vaccination.

- If your child has not been vaccinated, is under the age of three, and has been exposed to the measles virus, call the doctor.

- When a child has measles, the fever and cough should subside as the rash peaks. If they do not, watch for signs of complications.

- Earache during measles may indicate a middle ear infection. Consult the doctor.

Measles, which is also known as rubeola, is a highly contagious disease caused by a specific virus. It affects mainly the respiratory system, the eyes, and the skin, and is spread from person to person in airborne droplets of moisture from an infected person’s respiratory system. The incubation period-the time it takes for symptoms to develop once the child has been exposed to the virus – is ten to 12 days. Measles can be passed to other people between the fifth day of the incubation period and the sixth day after the appearance of the rash that is characteristic of this disease.

Measles used to be one of the more dangerous of the childhood diseases, but it is relatively uncommon today because a vaccine is now available to protect against it. Most children are now vaccinated against measles by an injection given at around the age of 15 months. If a mother is immune to measles (because she has either had it or been vaccinated against it), her baby before birth will receive temporary protection against the disease. This protection lasts only three to six months after birth. The reason that vaccination is delayed until the baby is 15 months old (and not given as soon as the temporary immunity acquired from the mother wears off) is that the vaccination is not fully effective in a baby under 15 months. It’s also fairly unlikely that a child under that age will be exposed to measles. It’s important to note, however, that measles is dangerous in a child under three years old, and if an unvaccinated young child is exposed to the virus you should consult the doctor at once. Measles is also likely to be serious in children who have chronic (long-term) diseases.

Measles is considered dangerous mainly because of the complications it can cause, among them pneumonia (infection of the lungs), middle ear infection, and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). Encephalitis occurs in only one or two out of every 1,000 cases of measles, and today death from measles or its complications is very rare.

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