Diseases we vaccinate against

[Froglet2011]

Hi everyone I'm interested to know if people with older children have come across many outbreaks of measles, whooping cough etc and have any of your non vaccinated children caught these in what would be considered a 'worse' case than peers who are vaccinated? Any comments gratefully received.

I had relatives (from my father's and grandparents' generations, not from mine) who died of measles or complications from measles. It wasn't the norm but of course it happened. (Otherwise why bother developing a vaccine?)

I can only report on personal experience, when my friend's daughter was in hospital. I am trying to think of the date, because she is a healthy teenager now, thank goodness, but was very ill at the time. It may have been up to 14 years ago, a 6 month old baby died and we were informed it was due to measles. My understanding was that she was from the traveller community, who do not tend to vaccinate, and hence did not benefit from herd immunity. I can only repeat, that was what we were informed, at that time.

My mum is vehement that measles was a real fear of parents before the vaccine was developed and is very impatient with modern mothers who describe it as a 'minor childhood illness'. That is her experience, growing up in working class Lancashire in the 40/50s and having children herself in a Scottish town in the 60s.

All of my family, including cousins were vaccinated against Measles in the 60s and 70s. Two of my cousins did catch Measles despite being vaccinated, they had it mildly but unfortunately passed it on to their unvaccinated baby brother. Who was extremely ill.

It was certainly seen by people I know as a horrible illness, I don't know where the idea of it being a mild diesease came from.

Because there is MMR "these days", which would prevent measles in an age-appropriately vaccinated 8 year old. Not sure about the "no one" worried, certainly the parents of the dead and disabled kids did:

^MEASLES: A dangerous illness by ROALD DAHL

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn?t do anything.

?Are you feeling all right?? I asked her.

?I feel all sleepy, ? she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her.

That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.^

In the first half of 1961, 132 children died of measles in England - I am sure one or the other parent was worried and in the early 80ies, when immunisation coverage was around 50%, still around 12 kids (officially) died of measles per year. Would you like those times back? I would not.

It's strange that it wasn't recorded.

I suppose, just as we do now, some people are more worried about things than others. Some parents today worry about chickenpox and get their children vaccinated while others aren't overly concerned. I'm sure it used to be the same with measles.

Catherina, of course you would worry if your child started showing signs of being very ill. I mean that most people didn't worry about their children catching it in the same way that we do today.

I don't agree 'that most people didn't worry about their children catching it in the same way that we do today'. I think exactly the opposite.

Parents worried far more when measles was a real risk and children died of it. I think people are not sufficiently worried today because they have not experienced the disease and think it is a minor illness, which as Roald Dahl's heartrending quote tells you, it often isn't.

My DCs paediatrician says that she has seen quite a lot of children with terrible complications from measles in the years she worked in a hospital. She is actually quite restrained when it comes to prescribing antibiotics and even some vaccines, but she thought the measles shot is a must.

AFAIK still about 20% of people with measles are hospitalised (depends on year and country, but it varies from few percent to 40) -and that's in the developed countries. I doubt the figures are the same for the chicken pox?

My mum had it and said it was fucking awful.

ithaka, you really think people aren't worried about measles? Why do you think they vaccinate then? I think the fact that the uptake of the vaccine is so much higher now does show that people are more worried about it.

Winnybella, I'm really not sure about that 20% hospitalised in developed countries figure. That would have meant seriously over run hospitals back in the 80s!

bumbleymummy, I don't think the update of the vaccine shows people are more worried about measles than previously, as the vaccine was not previously available. My point is that parents were even more scared of measles before there was a vaccine. Thank goodness we are not in that position today.

My sister was brain damaged by measles in the 60s. I know mothers who, upon meeting my family, have subsequently had their children vaccinated. Folk really do need to be reminded it is not a minor illness.

The single measles vaccine has been available since 1968 Ithaka. The uptake of the vaccine was still under 60% at the start of the 80s.

Sorry to hear about your sister Nemno.

Thank you bumbley, that kindness made me cry. Adults with SN don't generate much kindness I find.

froglet 2011
my 3 boys aged 10,13,16 had all there jabs, recently the school to which 2 of them go had a measels outbreak, neither of them caught measels, all 3 of them came in contact with there step sister who sadly passed away with whooping cough aged 44days, neither they or my partners child who has also had vacination or my partner or myself caught whooping cough.
hope this helps answer your original question.

bumbleymummy

The link says there were 2 death in 1992, and 4 1993 etc, about 23 deaths between 1992 - and 2008

Sashh, did you read the bit in bold at the bottom?

"In 2006 there was one measles death in a 13 years old male who had an underlying lung condition and was taking immunosuppressive drugs. Another death in 2008 was also due to acute measles in unvaccinated child with congenital immunodeficiency whose condition did not require treatment with immunoglobulin. Prior to 2006, the last death from acute measles was in 1992."