NEEPS

Townie · Moderator Joined: 04 Jul 2007 Posts: 2724 Location: Fife

I caught measles when I was 21 and it was the worst thing ever..took 2 weeks to disappear.

I had really bad flu like symptoms, I remember my eyes being extremely sensitive to light and a bright red rashy spots under the skin, and when they subsided left me covered in bruising (like lovebites lol)

I didnt realise it could be as serious as mentioned above, but then we didnt have the internet/computer when I was 21, just my mum's trusty old dog ear'd medical book.

Ina · Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:03 pm Post subject:

It's known to be more serious when you get it as an adult. Maybe we had a different type of measles in Germany?
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Ina

Sassinak · Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:53 pm Post subject:

LOL what do you call German measles in Germany? Is it just Rubella?
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Sassinak
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Ina · Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 1:09 pm Post subject:

Nope - Rubella is something different! I had both. And there is no such thing as German measles in Germany.
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Ina

Sassinak · Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 1:17 pm Post subject:

Yes I knew that Rubella wasn't the measles that were being talked about.
It was just word association - Germany + measles lol
Rubella is commonly known as German measles, but assumed that it wasn't in Germany
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Ina · Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 1:21 pm Post subject:

baldowrie · Neepster Joined: 21 Jul 2007 Posts: 1159

found this on Yahoo, should explain why it's called German Measles at times

Friedrich Hoffmann made a clinical description of rubella in 1740. Later descriptions by de Bergen in 1752 and Orlow in 1758 supported the belief that this was a derivative of measles. In 1814, George de Maton first suggested that it be considered a disease distinct from both measles and scarlet fever. All these physicians were German, and the disease was known medically as Rötheln (from the German name Röteln), hence the common name of "German measles".

English Royal Artillery surgeon, Henry Veale, observed an outbreak in India. He coined the euphonious name "rubella" (from the Latin, meaning "little red") in 1866. It was formally recognized as an individual entity in 1881, at the International Congress of Medicine in London. In 1914, Alfred Fabian Hess theorised that rubella was caused by a virus, based on work with monkeys.[8] In 1938, Hiro and Tosaka confirmed this by passing the disease to children using filtered nasal washings from acute cases.

In 1940, there was a widespread epidemic of rubella in Australia. Subsequently, opthalmologist Norman McAllister Gregg found 78 cases of congenital cataracts in infants and 68 of them were born to mothers who had caught rubella in early pregnancy. Gregg published an account, Congenital Cataract Following German Measles in the Mother, in 1941. He described a variety of problems now know as congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) and noticed that the earlier the mother was infected, the worse the damage was. The virus was isolated in tissue culture in 1962 by two separate groups led by physicians Parkman and Weller.

There was a pandemic of rubella between 1962 and 1965, starting in Europe and spreading to the United States. In the years 1964-65, the United States had an estimated 12.5 million rubella cases. This led to 11,000 miscarriages or therapeutic abortions and 20,000 cases of congenital rubella syndrome. Of these, 2,100 died as neonates, 12,000 were deaf, 3,580 were blind and 1,800 were mentally retarded. In New York alone, CRS affected 1% of all births.

In 1969 a live attenuated virus vaccine was licensed. In the early 1970s, a triple vaccine containing attenuated measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) viruses was introduced.

Ina · Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:19 am Post subject:

Ah - thank you!
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Ina

khitajrah · Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:48 pm Post subject:

When I was pregnant with my first they checked my rubella immunity - I wasn't immune so after the birth they offered me the vaccine. I declined as I wasn't planning to have any more children. 6 years later I became pregnant with my second and they checked my immunity again - oddly enough I was immune. They said I'd contracted the illness - it must have been mild because I never noticed it!
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