Morbillo: as the body of an unvaccinated child attacks
It is one of the most contagious known viruses ever: there are no specific therapies and can lead to very serious complications (even after years). The children are more affected. Vaccinating is the only weapon available
«The best way to prevent the spread of Morbillo is the vaccine»: The US Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr.did back Compared to its previous statements no vax After the second death For measles of a child in Texas, the state with the largest number of cases reported.
He wrote this phrase on X mentioning the « MMR vaccine », the trivalent used (also in Italy) against measles, parotitis and rubella.
The epidemic in Texas
The third death after 10 years for measles in the United States (two in Texas and one in New Mexico) was that of one 8 -year -old girl Died from a lung crisis at the Lubbock hospital. It was not vaccinated and had no previous diseases. Kennedy went to his funeral.
Before her, in February, it was died from Morbillo Kayley Fehr, 6 years old. The victims belonged to the mennonites, a Texas anabattist Christian community.
Since the end of January, since it started, the measles epidemic in the USA has recorded 607 confirmed cases (CDC), 481 only in Texas. The percentage of hospitalization is 12%especially between 5 years of 5 years. Unvaccinated children and teenagers are affected or with a state of unknown vaccination (97%) who risk serious problems with lungs, kidneys and brain.
Health experts provide that measles will still infect hundreds or even thousands of more people throughout the nation, because the outbreak is not controlled.
How the body attacks
Morbillo is one of the infections more contagious notes. It is estimated that measures more than 90% of people not immune exposed to an infected individual. There is talk of potentials 12-18 infected Every sick person.
How it attacks Is a unvaccinated child measles (and not immune to previous infection)?
Meanwhile, his contagiousness is given by the fact that The virus can remain in the air up to two hours after an infected person visited a closed environment.
The virus, aerial transmissioncan enter the body through the mucous membranes of nose or mouth, or (as we learned for Covid) when you rub our eyes with non -clean hands, or by inhalation of the respiratory droplets present in the air.
Incubation and symptoms
In the 24 hours following the contagion, the virus settles in the upper part of the throat and begins to multiply: invades cells using proteins that bind to guest cell receptors, then creates copies of himself.
About a week after initial exposure, infected cells can start traveling to other body organs. The average incubation period is long, about two weeks.
When the viral load has increased significantly, the first appear symptoms. They are generally fever and symptoms similar to those of the flu. Some children may have White-gray dots of a millimeter on the inside of the cheeks.
The peculiar feature of measles, however, is the appearance of A red rashwhich starts on the face and spreads along the neck, the trunk and the ends. The contagiousness of a patient lasts from Four days before four days later the appearance of the rash.
Very serious complications
Possible complications could arise when the fever lasts beyond the third or fourth day of the rash, or even the missing eruption. THE small children They are the most at risk.
The 5-6% of children with Morbillo it develops in fact pneumoniain one case out of a thousand it can occur a brain infection (encephalitis) which can be fatal or cause mental retardation. Another rare complication (one in 100 thousand) is the Pancencephalitis acute sclerosantewhich develops a few years after measles, with ausually fatal evolution within one to three years from the debut.
Even if the complications are relatively rare, measles is still responsible for a number between 30 and 100 deaths per 100,000 people affected.
Another distinctive stretch of measles is what researchers call « immune amnesia», The temporary weakening of the immune system: in infected people, the virus has the ability to eliminate up to 73% of antibodies which defend the body from other diseases (including influence, herpes and pneumonia). We talked about it here.
Once the measles virus is contracted, moreover, There are no specific care: It is not possible to control the severity of the infection because there is no antiviral, but only support care to manage symptoms.
Vaccination
« The vaccination is, therefore, the most effective weapon at our disposal and we must take advantage of it fully, not only by vaccinating the children in a widespread way, but also using it as adults in all necessary cases, » he declares Andrea Goriprofessor of infectious diseases at the University of Milan and Head of the ASST-Fatebenefratelli-Sacco infectious disease unit, L. Sacco Hospital.
In Italy in the first two months of 2025 we had 127 cases, of which over 90% in non -vaccinated subjects and 7% in vaccinated with a single dose (data higher health institute). Italy in 2024, with 1,097 cases, was the second country in the EU with multiple contagions after the record of Romania (27,568 cases).
The vaccination coverage in Italy is (slightly) to 95 percent lower (epicenter 2023), which is the security threshold recommended by the World Health Organization to guarantee the « community » immunity in the population.
