This Is How a Child Dies of Measles

"It's a classic kids' party: Tears and lemonade are spilled; mud and cake get smeared into the rug; confetti balloons are popped one by one, showering elated children in rainbow-paper flakes. Sunbeams through the windows illuminate floating dust motes-and, imperceptibly, microdroplets of mucus carrying the measles virus, expelled from an infected but asymptomatic child who is hopping and laughing among the others. Your daughter breathes that same air, inhaling the virus directly into her respiratory tract."

"The infected aerosolized droplets will linger in the air for hours, which is partly why measles is among the most contagious diseases in the world. The virus infects roughly 90 percent of unvaccinated people exposed to it; the infected can then, in turn, infect a dozen to several hundred people each, depending on where they are and what they're doing."

At a children's birthday party, an asymptomatic infected child can expel aerosolized mucus microdroplets that linger in the air for hours, exposing other children. Measles infects roughly 90 percent of unvaccinated people exposed, and each infected person can infect a dozen to several hundred others, depending on circumstances. Vaccination greatly reduces risk: one MMR dose is about 93 percent effective, and two doses about 97 percent effective. Breakthrough infections among the vaccinated are rare, tend to be milder, and are less likely to spread. Among unvaccinated people in the United States, about one in five infected requires hospitalization, and approximately two per 1,000 infected children die of complications.

Read at The Atlantic