Is measles more dangerous now than in the 70's??

[minceorotherwise]

This may be a stupid question...but I was thinking back to when I was a child. I remember having the MMR, don't think they gave boosters though?
I also remember measles was quite common, but seen as a mild illness no one worried about
I also remember having German measles and being (obv) kept indoors.
Just wondering then, is the current and previous strain of measles worse than in the 70's and why?
And was I likely to have contracted GM because the mmr booster was not given and the vaccination waned?

the mmr wasnt introduced in the UK until 1988 and then the second dose was added in 1996 as it was less effective than first expected.

I had measles in the 80s it wasn't exactly mild, I was nearly hospitalised, but then I wasn't the healthiest & strongest child and always got complications with everything. Even so it did no lasting damage and I won't be giving my son the mmr. Will do some immunity tests when he's older and decide then about singles.

Thanks! That answers a couple of questions!!!
So I guess the other thing is, is the latest strain of measles more virulent than the one in the 70's and if yes why and how
Or is it simply that severe cases were under reported?

I think like all childhood illnesses, it's always been quite dangerous to some, but quite mild for most. My mum says her poor eyesight was caused by measles, and that was in the '50's.

the single measles vaccine was apparently given from age 1, rubella was given to girls age 10-13 and mumps was never given.

Measles has never been a mild illness, that's why we have immunisations. I suspect that the severe cases were just underreported then, or as is the case with so many things, it is 'over reported' now.

Its always been dangerous - my mum taught 5-7 year olds from 1960-2000, and rembered a few children dying and quite a number who'd been left deaf or with other problems after measles.
DH was left with permanent eye problems after measles and had been very ill with it.

I think we're a lot less tolerant of child mortality in this country than we used to be. If you have 5% infant mortality like we did in the forties or 2% like we did in 1970 then one in a thousand dying of measles or two in a thousand dying of SIDS is not your primary priority. Now we've got infant mortality down to around 0.5% then those "one in a thousand" risks are much more of a priority, and we obsess (quite understandably) about the perfect car seat and making smokers wash their hands before they cuddle the baby.

If the mmr wasn't introduced until 88 and not that effective until booster in '96, how come more adults my age (ie kids who were of the age not to be vaccinated) don't or didn't get measles in the last outbreak?
Is it predominantly something that affects children? And why is that?

single measles jabs were given before mmr was brought in. The booster of mmr helped cover more people than the single mmr jab

Measles vaccination in the UK was introduced in 1968, so those of us growing up in the 70's had been vaccinated

Measles was seen as a mild illness because we had a very high vaccination rate. Thanks to the MMR scandal our immunity has reduced and so deaths and serious side effects are on the rise again. For those that have been vaccinated its most likely they will present mild symptoms and recover quickly. As a society we see these diseases as mild because we only see a mild version, we have forgotten what killers and maimers these diseases are.

In the bad old days, you simply weren't aware of the other poor children for whom measles wasn't a 'mild' illness (ie one you pretty much recovered from though IIRC most unpleasant) because they were either dead or packed off to 'special schools' - no main-stream education then, so the healthy majority could live in blissful ignorance of the unfortunates who were damaged by measles. Same goes for the in utero victims of rubella, by and large - I had one friend whose profound deafness was caused by German measles.

So, I think that answers my question. Thank you ladies!
Therefore, the measles virus didn't 'change' it was just the amount and potency of immunity?

Yes mince :) bang on. Plus we didn't have the level if public health service surveillance we do now, so cases would have went unreported or unrecorded.

We had a 'golden age' of immunity, which is, sadly over, hopefully only temporarily, if we can get the public health message out there and increase immunity status again.

I was born in 62 and was supposed to have the measles jab in what was a catch up campaign when I was probably 8. I was not given it because of a history of febrile convulsions in my family. I remember being in the queue for it. In those days there were notices in library books about not returning them if you measles, mumps etc.
I did get measles the year after and was very ill. My mother received a letter stating that we were to be kept in quarantine etc. It obviously wasn't seen as a mild disease by the authorites then. Circa 1971