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Show Measles is still dangerous disease "Measles, which used to be one of the most common childhood diseases, dis-eases, is still one of the most dangerous," a Utah Department of Social Services' Ser-vices' official said. According to Dr. Taira Fukushima, Deputy Direc- tor of Health, Disease Control Branch, measles, often called the hard, 7-day or red measles, can result in inner ear infection, infec-tion, pneumonia, encephalitis enceph-alitis and other very severe se-vere complications. Measles is most likely to occur in late winter and spring. In past years, the disease caused illness in young children, especially during their first few years of school. However, it is now reported with increasing frequency among older children. Outbreaks have even been reported among unimmu-nized unimmu-nized college students. "Before a vaccine was available approximately 500,00 measles cases were reported each year in the United States," Fukushima Fuku-shima said. Hundreds of children died each year as a result of complications of measles illness. The lowest year for reported cases of measles was 1974, with 22,094 cases reported for the United States. However, reported cases have since increased to nearly 55,000 cases in 1977. He explained that measles usually begins with symptoms similar to those of a bad cold. The fever may climb as high as 104 degrees to 105 degrees. de-grees. Several days after the fever begins, a blotchy red rash appears on the face and soon spreads to other parts of the body. The rash fades away gradually grad-ually over a period of 4 to 6 days. "Serious complications compli-cations may follow. For every 1,000 reported cases of measles, several children child-ren may develop encephalitis enceph-alitis (brain infection) or severe viral pneumonia. On the average, one child will die of complications for every 1,000 cases reported re-ported to the Public Health Service," he stressed. Fukushima said that the recent increases of reported report-ed cases of measles is because of the presence of so many unimmunized children . ' 'Immunization levels for measles are lowest for junior and senior high school students stu-dents and preschool children. child-ren. Such low immunization immuniza-tion levels make school outbreaks more likely and school children bring the disease home and spread it to their preschool brothers bro-thers and sisters. This was the situation during the 1975-1976 Utah measles outbreak, when over 2300 cases were reported," he said. All children should be immunized against the measles at age 15 months or as soon as possible thereafter. The vaccine is now usually given in a combination shot including in-cluding measles, mumps and rubella vaccines (M-M-R). In Utah, immunizations are easily available from family doctors, pediatricians pedia-tricians and local health department clinics. Call today. It's a matter of health your child's health. |
