"Measles dominated health headlines last year - the U.S. experienced a record-breaking number of measles cases, children died, and the strain of managing outbreaks in communities fell hard on the shoulders of parents. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the nation is already set to outpace last year's numbers. As more and more Americans contract measles, the complications of the infection will become more common, too."
"Measles is often referred to as a respiratory virus because it is transmitted via small droplets in the air. You can breathe it in after walking into a room where an infected person was up to two hours prior. But when the virus infects the body, it doesn't target our respiratory system. "The virus predominantly infects cells of the immune system; the cells of the immune system are best known to most people as the white blood cells,""
Measles spreads through small respiratory droplets and can be inhaled after entering a room where an infected person was up to two hours earlier. Large outbreaks produced record-breaking case counts and deaths, increasing strain on parents and public health systems. The measles virus predominantly infects immune system cells rather than targeting the respiratory tract directly. Memory cells create antibodies after prior infections and provide quicker protection on re-exposure. Measles disables these memory cells, preventing them from producing antibodies against previously encountered pathogens. That loss of immune memory is called immune amnesia and increases vulnerability to other infections.
Read at Scary Mommy
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