If (single) measles jabs only last for 3 years....

[goingbacktowork]

why do we bother giving them?

My daughter is due for her second single measles jab this week. However the clinic said that generally they are effective for only 3 years. Well if this will take her to age 7-8 what is the point? Won't she just be more likely to get measles when she is this age?

Thanks

Tabitha - in a world without vaccines you get the disease, make antibodies then constantly bump into the disease again - each time your immune system is stimulated and you produce more antibodies - a 'natural booster'.

If you give a vaccine then your immune system is stimulated and you produce antibodies. If you then bump into measles you produce more antibodies. A natural booster.

Take away circulating disease (and of course mass vaccination does that) and your antibodies don't get frequent boosters.

It can affect natural immunity as well - but it is generally believed that is slightly more robust (at population level - of course every individual case will be different).

I think there's an argument for teen boosters. In the case of measles and rubella there may well still be strong arguments for measles and rubella vaccination. Not sure that holds for mumps though. It is typically very mild in children (a third of cases asymptomatic) but more serious in adults.

yes the same as the MMR - it is the measles vaccine not what form it is given in.

What they actually said was the immunity should last at least 3 years so they insist in 3 years between the 2 single measles jabs.

Oh and ds1 was given a Hib jab 'one for life' then they discovered it was actually lasting less than 2 years. Oh well!

It does make you think what is the point does n't it?

What is the great pressure to get all these jabs - particularly measles - if they don't give lifelong immunity?

I suppose it reduces circulating disease dramatically.

Although we haven't vaccinated ds2 and ds3 I can see the argument for a number of the jabs including measles (can also see why people choose not to obviously). But i really can't see the point of mumps vaccination. It's nearly always a mild disease in children and the vaccination isn't effective enough (as I said efficacy keeps being revised downward) to prevent adult outbreaks. I personally think there's a stronger argument for chickenpox vaccination than mumps (and I don't think that's a particularly strong argument for a healthy child living in a household where no-one has health problems).

Part of the rationale for why they like to give them all so early is that the child's immune system is relatively immature and therefore they are more likely to suffer badly from the disease when younger. If you can get them through childhood they are less likely to catch measles badly. This isn't necessarily true in well-nourished children, however.

Of course that is not going to help pg women if they come up against rubells - or more to the point, their foetus.

And mumps is indeed more serious in adulthood, which rather begs the question as to why they insist on giving it so early but not boosting it.

you ladies have really set my mind at rest. My son can't have single mumphs jab as no longer available and was worrying about this - now thinking it has got to be better for him to catch it now then when he is a teenager.

When DS started university (in 2006) he was told he should get an MMR booster either before he went or as soon as he got there - I think they were checking at registration whether he'd had it done.
I'm not sure whether it was because they thought the effectiveness might have declined or because they were concerned that a lot of the students might never have had the MMR - DS was born at the end of 1987 so when he had the jab it was relatively new.

it is so confusing isn't it - on the basis it seems like this definitely becomes less effective why don't we just not immunise as it seems catching it at an older date can be far worse then catching it while young.

Thumbwitch - that's not true for childhood diseases though. You are more likely to suffer complications from measles if you catch it post puberty. Ditto mumps. I don't think rubella makes much difference for the individual but of course the damage done by rubella can be devastating during pregnancy (therefore another you'd want to avoid as an adult). Although chickenpox is routinely vaccinated against the sand is true.

Generally you want to avoid childhood infections in the first year (so helpful if your mother has a good dose of antbofies yo pass onto you) and then you want to avoid them post puberty.

Having a clear idea of the length of time a vaccine is likely to last (especially in the absence of circulating disease) is therefore really important imo, but studies carried out are too short to answer that really. I don't know how much surveillance goes on to answer those questions once a vaccine has been introduced. Some must as they picked up that Hib wasn't working as expected.

Individual tetanus jabs don't confer lifelong immunity, but we mostly still get the jab, because the disease is just so very nasty to chance getting at all. I'd rather have limited immunity (to measles, for instance) for 10 years than never at all.

Is it really the case that a true bout of measles almost always (99%) confers lifelong immunity? It almost never wears off -- really?

Some of the most rabid anti-vax people in the USA claim that most the jabs cause you to liberally shed the virus immediately afterwards (this is explained in the context of why they have to HE their kids and strictly limit their social lives ) -- if that's true then these microbes are still circulating, no?

I think tetanus is not a good analogy as the effect at any age would be the same - mumphs is different I think as it gets worse.

I could not follow what you are saying in your last paragraph.

Fair enough SDMrsTurnip - I was trying to give the rationale rather than my personal belief but I didn't know that measles would be worse post-puberty. I don't think I've any experience at all of post-puberty measles!

Chickenpox doesn't seem to get worse post-puberty - my DH had it when he was 27 and it was about the same as it would have been if a child had it.
Shingles of course is a different matter.

Measles always conferred lifelong immunity as it was a) so virulent and b) so widespread. You can prove immunity to measles by being born before 1956 or something (by which I mean authorities will accept that as proof of immunity), as measles was fo widespread everyone came into contact with it. Whether natural
infection will confer lifelong immunity in the absence of circulating disease remains to be seen.

Thumbwitch the rate of complications for chickenpox is higher in adults than children - esp pneumonia - and it can be very problematic at certain stages of pregnancy.

This isn't to argue for vaccinations. Ds2 and ds3 haven't had any yet although if we could get a single tetanus they would have had that by now (5 in 1 not an option), and we would be thinking about single measles for ds2 about now (he's 8).