Learn More About Signs and Symptoms of Measles You can get measles if you breathe in contaminated air or touch your eyes, nose, or mouth after touching an infected surface. You can pass on the virus to someone else four days before and after a rash appears. The diagnosis may not always be as straightforward as it sounds, says Adalja. “In the United States, many doctors have never seen a case of measles and so sometimes they don’t even think to suspect it,” he says. Many types of childhood viral diseases are accompanied by a rash, but measles does have some characteristic findings, according to Adalja. “If you look inside the mouth of someone with measles, they have something called Koplik spots, which are little white spots that are very characteristic of measles,” he says.
Prognosis of Measles
Learn More About Treatment for Measles: Medication, Alternative and Complementary Therapies, and More
Prevention of Measles
The key to preventing measles is vaccination, says Adalja. “Because measles is the most contagious disease known to humankind, you need to have a very high level of immunity in the population,” he says. “More than 90 percent of a population needs to be protected or this virus will find a way to spread. That’s why the herd immunity threshold for measles is very high, much higher than for any other infectious disease,” says Adalja. However, that’s not to say people don’t ever get measles: Outbreaks of measles can still happen. Approximately 86 percent of those cases were associated with underimmunized, close-knit communities, including two outbreaks in New York Orthodox Jewish communities. The infection can be prevented with the MMR vaccine, the same vaccine used for measles prevention. The CDC website provides comprehensive, up-to-date information about infectious diseases, such as measles, found in the United States and around the world. FamilyDoctor.org This website, from the American Academy of Family Physicians, offers education and medical advice on a variety of conditions, including measles. MedlinePlus MedlinePlus is a service of the National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest medical library, which is part of the National Institute of Health (NIH). The agency provides health and wellness information in both English and Spanish. Additional reporting by Joseph Bennington-Castro.
