Measles … I don’t understand!

[dol1]

Dd has had the vaccine at 12 months. I’ve been watching news and there is apparently a ‘surge’ in cases now. The second vaccine for it isn’t until she’s 3… does this mean she could well get measles between now and then?

I wasn't there, but elder generations were. Why are you getting your knickers in a twist about this?

I think it’s a strange one as it’s meant to be extremely contagious - I was never vaccinated for anything and when my siblings had measles I didn’t catch it ?? Also when they had chickenpox I didn’t get it (I got it 7 months later?) .
My dc had their vaccines very late and didn’t have mmr till age 10 . We also vaccinated for c pox after my eldest got it badly (but ds who was 4 at the time didn’t get it and then he didn’t get it either when nearly his whole class did ??)

I think the first mmr gives 80 something % protection and the second 90 something % ? So she should be covered till she has tbe pre school booster

Read the details from pp - yes they did.

One of Agatha Christie’s plots was based on the fact of someone with German measles deliberately going out regardless to meet a celebrity, who was pregnant and whose baby was consequently born with severe brain damage.

Unfortunately, OP, there are a lot of selfish, ignorant people out there who aren't vaccinating their children.

I don't think unvaccinated children should be allowed in state funded nurseries, preschools or schools without being vaccinated, personally, unless there are solid medical issues that particular individuals shouldn't have certain vaccinations.

Because we lived it . Even if everybody you knew was lucky enough to be " just fine" the illness itself is horrible and nobody would want their child to go through it even if they had no long term effects.

It’s weird as I’ve had multiple cycles of mmr vaccine! I had them all when I was a child then when I was pregnant they discovered I wasn’t immune to rubella, but was measles and mumps.

They waited until I’d had my son to revaccinate me as said it’s a live vaccine, after having the full course a 2nd time, they tested me again and I’ve still not got sufficient immunity to rubella, so it’s a bit odd but I have measles and mumps.

I’m a nurse though and we’re seeing so many cases of diseases that weren’t on the horizon as much like TB and measles. My sons school had 5 cases of measles last year and we live in Yorkshire and somewhere that is not hugely populated

You're referring to chicken pox, not measles.

Measles is a unique virus in its ability to reset/wipe out your immune system and the antibodies you've acquired, leaving you vulnerable to all infections including the ones you've already been vaccinated against. It can take up to 5 years for someone to regain a healthy immune system following a measles infection.

This is extremely dangerous:

'Examination of child mortality rates in the U.S., U.K., and Denmark in the decades before and after the introduction of the measles vaccine revealed that nearly half of all childhood deaths from infectious disease could be related to MV infection when the disease was prevalent. That means infections other than measles resulted in death, due to the MV effect on the immune system.'

https://asm.org/articles/2019/may/measles-and-immune-amnesia#:~:text=Immune%20Amnesia%3A%20How%20Your%20Immune%20System%20Forgets%20to%20Fight&text=During%20the%20acute%20phase%20of,new%2C%20MV%2Dspecific%20lymphocytes.

I remember visiting my grandmother the day after my DD had had her MMR (20 years ago). My grandmother told me her older brother and sister had both died as young children from measles. The idea that my grandmother would have had a measles party is laughable. They were terrified of it and rightly so.

My father used to smoke 2 packets a day at home, and few people will do that today with their children. The old days were not the best from today's healthcare knowledge..

I've also had multiple rubella vaccines and I always test as having no immunity to it. At last count I've had 8 rubella vaccines and none has taken, several family members are the same so I wonder if it's a genetic trait and for some reason we kill that portion of the MMR jab without forming any immune response to it.

My grandmother was left profoundly deaf after contracting measles and my husbands uncle had an eye removed when he was 5 due to severe complications which had left him in pain and blind in that eye, both my dc were fully vaccinated

Because deliberately exposing children to measles is very dangerous and could kill them and what you are saying could encourage the practice and lead to death/severe disability.

Either you are wrong or your ancestors were very, very stupid/didn't care if their kids died. There are no other explanations for your assertions. I hope you are just getting muddled with other diseases.

In my country the chicken pox vaccine is part of the standard free childhood vaccine program. I already think chicken pox parties are crazy.

I didn’t know about measles reducing your immunity to other diseases before this thread, but throughout primary school I had recurring tonsillitis to the point where my GP (who was quite anti-hospitals) wanted me to have them removed.

I am also very short sighted - but I’m not sure whether that was due to the measles or whether it would have happened anyway (I had a short sighted parent).

I had measles in my 30s, neither my 10 month old or my three year old caught it.
I’d had all the boosters!

I was born in the 60s and neither immunocompromised nor already unwell when I got measles. The GP still insisted my parents put blankets over the windows to protect my eyesight. They had already closed the curtains but that wasn't enough he said.

It really is not a harmless childhood infection as you seem to think.

Oh really! I was told they won’t vaccinate me or test again so it just seems I have no response to rubella. I’d always advise vaccination as necessary though to protect as much as we can, if I recall there was a big uproar as people thought it was linked to autism but that myth had been debunked.

It was similar when I started my training, we were all vaccinated against hep b and I know of a few in my cohort that were non responders to that too and came back without sufficient immunity despite vaccination

No the baby inherits immunity from the mother in the womb , but it only lasts ashort while, which is why they do not give MMR until 13 months because the inherited immunity stops the vaccine being effective

@SabrinaThwaite I mentioned above i had recurring tonsilitis the year after i had measles and they eventually took them out because i was missing so much school

She should have a much higher level of protection than if she wasn't vaccinated at all.

If the ‘79’ in your username is your year of birth then you are three years older than me and I suspect your recollection is either false or deliberately misleading. Measles was well known as a dangerous virus during my 80s childhood. My grandfather had measles during a heavy snowfall in the 1920s and was kept indoors with the curtains tightly shut, as it was well known that measles made the eyes vulnerable and he could have been blinded by the bright light reflecting on the snow. Two of his classmates were left profoundly deaf by measles. The experience was one of the main reasons why he became a doctor and he talked about it a lot.

I’ve caught both rubella and measles as a teacher. I’d even had boosters in my early 20s because our LA at the time had a programme targeting teachers for boosters due to high levels of infection.
I’ve also had an extreme reaction to a flu vaccine so I seem to have non-typical responses

I'm not convinced that guardian article is correct. I'd like to see firm evidence of these measles parties. Maybe in America they had them? But in the UK, or at least in England and Wales, it was still a notifiable disease, my dad lived in the valleys, he was isolated when he had measles. There is absolutely no way his parents would have been allowed to have a party. He wasn't even allowed to mix with his siblings, he was pretty much banished to his bedroom for 10 days, and his brother had to move into his parents room!

Measles has a high risk of complications even in "mild" cases. 1 in 10 cases develop ear infections and/or gastrointestinal symptoms. 1 in 20 will develop pneumonia, this is often the leading cause of death in measles patients. 1 in 200 will suffer convulsions. 1 in 1000 will develop encephalitis. Worldwide, measles is the leading cause of blindness in children. Then there are more serious complications such as SSPE which does not become apparent until years later. Overall around 1 in 5 measles cases require hospitalisation and there is no treatment for measles, only support measures and symptom management.

Measles also massively fucks your immune system and you can expect to catch absolutely everything for up to five years after because it essentially blank slates all your learned immunities.

Prior to the vaccine being introduced in the 60s, around 2.4 million people a year died from measles. Countless people grew up living with the complications of measles such as hearing or sight issues.

In essence, the vaccine has been a victim of it's own success. It's prevented so many deaths that, as a society, we're so far removed from these deaths and raft of complications that some people think they can safely dispense with the need to be vaccinated.