Source: Doctor Tinashe Manzvii (Health Expert)
✍️ Measles is a childhood infection caused by a virus. Once quite common, measles can now almost always be prevented with a vaccine.
🌺 Also called rubeola, measles can be serious and even fatal for small children. While death rates have been falling worldwide as more children receive the measles vaccine, the disease still kills more than 100,000 people a year, most under the age of 5.
Symptoms:
💮 Measles signs and symptoms appear around 10 to 14 days after exposure to the virus.
Signs and symptoms of measles typically include:
▪️Fever
▪️Dry cough
▪️Runny nose
▪️Sore throat
▪️Inflamed eyes (conjunctivitis)
▪️Tiny white spots with bluish-white centers on a red background found inside the mouth on the inner lining of the cheek — also called Koplik’s spots
▪️A skin rash made up of large, flat blotches that often flow into one another
The infection occurs in a sequence of stages during a period of two to three weeks.
🥦 Infection and incubation. For the first 10 to 14 days after you’re infected, the measles virus incubates. You have no signs or symptoms of measles during this time.
Nonspecific signs and symptoms:
💠 Measles typically begins with a mild to moderate fever, often accompanied by a persistent cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes (conjunctivitis) and sore throat. This relatively mild illness may last two or three days.
🍊 Acute illness and rash. The rash consists of small red spots, some of which are slightly raised. Spots and bumps in tight clusters give the skin a splotchy red appearance. The face breaks out first.
🌺 Over the next few days, the rash spreads down the arms and trunk, then over the thighs, lower legs and feet. At the same time, the fever rises sharply, often as high as 104 to 105.8 F (40 to 41 C). The measles rash gradually recedes, fading first from the face and last from the thighs and feet.
🍓 Communicable period. A person with measles can spread the virus to others for about eight days, starting four days before the rash appears and ending when the rash has been present for four days.
Causes:
🌺 Measles is a highly contagious illness caused by a virus that replicates in the nose and throat of an infected child or adult. Then, when someone with measles coughs, sneezes or talks, infected droplets spray into the air, where other people can inhale them.
🏵️ The infected droplets may also land on a surface, where they remain active and contagious for several hours. You can contract the virus by putting your fingers in your mouth or nose or rubbing your eyes after touching the infected surface.
🍪 About 90% of susceptible people who are exposed to someone with the virus will be infected.
Risk factors for measles include:
🌻 Being unvaccinated. If you haven’t received the vaccine for measles, you’re much more likely to develop the disease.
Traveling internationally. If you travel to developing countries, where measles is more common, you’re at higher risk of catching the disease.
🍁 Having a vitamin A deficiency. If you don’t have enough vitamin A in your diet, you’re more likely to have more-severe symptoms and complications.
🍋 Preventing measles during an outbreak or known infection.
If someone in your household has measles, take these precautions to protect vulnerable family and friends:
✅ Isolation. Because measles is highly contagious from about four days before to four days after the rash breaks out, people with measles shouldn’t return to activities in which they interact with other people during this period.
✅ It may also be necessary to keep nonimmunized people — siblings, for example — away from the infected person.
✅ Vaccinate. Be sure that anyone who’s at risk of getting the measles who hasn’t been fully vaccinated receives the measles vaccine as soon as possible. This includes infants older than 6 months and anyone born in 1957 or later who doesn’t have written documentation of being vaccinated, or who doesn’t have evidence of immunity or having had measles in the past.
🍋 If you or your child has measles, keep in touch with your Health service provider as you monitor the progress of the disease and watch for complications. Also try these comfort measures:
✅ Take it easy. Get rest and avoid busy activities.
Sip something. Drink plenty of water, fruit juice and herbal tea to replace fluids lost by fever and sweating.
Seek respiratory relief. Use a humidifier to relieve a cough and sore throat.
✅ Rest your eyes. If you or your child finds bright light bothersome, as do many people with measles, keep the lights low or wear sunglasses. Also avoid reading or watching television if light from a reading lamp or from the television is bothersome.
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