Measles Is a Highly Contagious

Measles is a highly contagious disease. It is caused by an RNA virus that changes constantly. Measles symptoms usually include a bad cough, sneezing, runny nose, red eyes, sensitivity to light, and a very high fever. Red patches with white grain like centers appear along the gum line in the mouth two to four days after the first symptoms show. These patches are called Koplik spots because Henry Koplick first noticed them in 1896. The Spots are important to diagnose measles.

A characteristic red rash in measles is red spots starting at the hairline and going down to the face, body, and limbs. Measles usually ends with a complete recovery, but some rare complications can occur with the lungs and brain. In 1978, the U.S. Public Health Service started vaccinating for measles. All school age children were vaccinated. Two years later the measles virus occurring went down 99%.

Now days, measles is very rare and all children are vaccinated for it in the industrialized world, however this is not the case in China (WHO, 2011). Nearly 100 million children in China will be vaccinated against measles to help eliminate the disease, a leading cause of avoidable death and disability in developing countries. There were more than 52,000 cases of measles in China in 2009. Although most people recover from the highly contagious viral disease, some suffer serious complications like blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea, pneumonia and ear infections.

Michael O'Leary, the WHO's representative in China, said China's measles cases made up 86% of all cases in the western Pacific. O'Leary said residents of remote areas, huge urban expanses and the large migrant population may have less access to vaccines and not be protected against measles. Globally, 164,000 people died from measles in 2008 - mostly children under the age of five, or 18 deaths every hour. To eliminate measles, every child should get two doses, the second given after the age of one year.

David Hipgrave, chief of health and nutrition at UNICEF China (United Nations Children's Fund), said the Chinese campaign would be a single-dose exercise. "It's a catch-up campaign to boost the levels of immunity among children who may have missed the second dose, or in whom one of the doses was not effective," he said (WHO, 2011). This in on top of news that in recent years, measles vaccination efforts have resulted in a drop from 7.6 per 1 million in 2011 from 28.6 per 1 million in 2010, which is a record low. Also, the total cases.