Crossword Dictionary
MEASLES
Measles, also called rubeola or morbilli , contagious viral disease marked by fever, cough, conjunctivitis, and a characteristic rash. Measles is most common in children but may appear in older persons who escaped it earlier in life. Infants are immune up to four or five months of age if the mother has had the disease. Immunity to measles following an attack is usually lifelong.
Measles is so highly communicable that the slightest contact with an active case may infect a susceptible person. After an incubation period of about 10 days, the patient develops fever, redness and watering of the eyes, profuse nasal discharge, and congestion of the mucous membranes of the nose and throat—symptoms often mistaken for those of a severe cold. This period of invasion lasts for 48 to 96 hours.
The fever increases with appearance of a blotchy rash, and the temperature may rise as high as 40 °C (about 105 °F) when the rash reaches its maximum. Twenty-four to 36 hours before the rash develops, there appear in the mucous membranes of the mouth typical maculae, called Koplik spots—bluish white specks surrounded by bright red areas about 1/32 inch (0.75 mm) in diameter. After a day or two the rash becomes a deeper red and gradually fades, the temperature drops rapidly, and the catarrhal symptoms disappear.
No drug is effective against measles. The only treatment required is control of fever, rest in bed, protection of the eyes, care of the bowels, and sometimes steam inhalations to relieve irritation of the bronchial tree. When no complications occur, the illness lasts 10 days. Although uncomplicated measles is seldom fatal, infection with the virus has been shown to induce a form of “immune amnesiaâ€.
measles
Measles is a childhood infection caused by a virus. Once quite common, measles can now almost always be prevented with a vaccine.
Also called rubeola, measles can be serious and even fatal for small children. While death rates have been falling worldwide as more children receive the measles vaccine, the disease still kills more than 100,000 people a year, most under the age of 5.
As a result of high vaccination rates in general, measles hasn't been widespread in the United States for more than a decade. The United States had about 30 cases of measles in 2004 but more than 600 cases in 2014. Most of these cases originated outside the country and occurred in people who were unvaccinated or who didn't know whether or not they had been vaccinated.