Measles
Measles is caused by a virus which is spread by droplet transmission (which means it’s carried in droplets of infected saliva produced by a cough or sneeze) from another infected person. After a few days of high fever, running nose, cough and inflamed eyes the rash appears, usually starting from behind the ears and spreading down to cover the whole body. The rash is preceded by white spots inside the mouth which look like grains of salt - called Koplik’s spots. As is usual once the rash appears the patient improves. While this is an uncomplicated disease in most cases it can cause respiratory problems such as pneumonia, ear infections, encephalitis and very rarely subacute sclerosing panencephalitis which appears many years later (see headaches category in the brain section). In developing countries where there is a deficiency of the Vitamin A in the diet, there may be deficient cell-mediated immunity (the T-lymphocyte’s don’t work properly) and the disease may be prolonged. Introduction of an effective vaccine has reduced the incidence massively in the Western World. Being a viral illness there is, of course, no treatment, but if there is secondary infection by a bacterium causing pneumonia or ear infection then antibiotics may be indicated.
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