Where Did Measles Come From?

Where did measles come from? Measles comes from a virus and is spread by airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes or by contact of the infected person’s bodily fluids. Let’s look at this disease, its origin, and treatment.

It is believed that measles come from distemper, a disease that infects dogs.  When humans domesticated the dog, the virus could have mutated and become a virus that could infect humans. Measles probably first appeared around 2000 B. C. in West Africa.

The first record of measles as a plague comes from Athens in 430 B. C.  The Persian physician known as Rhazes first identified measles in 900 A. D.  By the 1500s, most of the adults living in Europe, Asia, and North Africa had already had the measles and were immune to it. Therefore, when there was a measles outbreak, it was the children who were most affected.

Measles spread to the Americas and decimated the indigenous peoples there. Two thirds of the natives of Cuba were killed by the disease in 1529 and within two years half of the population of Honduras had died. During the 1800s, the people of Hawaii, Fiji, and the Andaman Islands suffered great loss. Since the mid-1800s, measles has killed about 200 million people all over the world.

Symptoms, Complications, and Treatment for Measles

Although measles are thought to have originally come from distemper, today measles is a highly contagious and dangerous disease which is caused by a virus, paramyxovirus, and characterized by a skin rash. Twenty one strains of the disease have been identified.

The incubation period ranges from 6-19 days with infected people being contagious two to four days before the rash appears and two to five days after it appears.

To arrive at a diagnosis of measles, there needs to be a fever for at least three days, coughing, a runny nose, and red watery eyes (conjunctivitis).  Other symptoms are:

• Sensitivity to light
• Koplik's spots (grayish bumps in the mouth)
• Rash which starts at the ears and spreads within a day or two. The rash will sometimes be itchy and will change from red to dark brown before disappearing.

Sometimes there are complications such as: convulsions because of high fever, pneumonia (secondary bacterial infection), bronchitis, meningitis, encephalitis, middle ear infection, corneal ulceration, and acute measles encephalitis.

Fatality rates are 3 deaths in 1000 in developed countries and can be as high as 28 percent in underdeveloped nations. In people who have immune disorders, like AIDS, the mortality rate is around 30 percent.

There is usually no treatment for measles since most people recover naturally.  Any secondary infections can be treated with antibiotics. Symptoms like fever and pain can be treated with ibuprofen or acetaminophen.

Vaccines for Measles

A vaccine against measles was first developed in the 1950s by John Enders and it became available in 1963. In 1971, the MMR vaccine, which is a combination of measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles), was developed and the MMRV, which includes varicella, was developed in 2005.

The measles vaccine is made from a live strain of the measles virus and is given in two doses. It is very effective, protecting 95-98% of patients after one dose, and 99% effective in those who receive both doses.  

Measles Vaccine and Autism

Some parents have chosen not to have their children vaccinated, or to wait until the child is older, because of the potential development of autism. In the 1940s and 1950s autism was rare and limited to children from higher socioeconomic classes; in other words, those families who could afford good health care and vaccines.

The rate of autism rose sharply after the 1970s, when there were nationwide vaccination initiatives, and autism now affects one child in 150.

The cause of the autism is not the vaccine but the mercury in the vaccine. Mercury is a toxic, heavy metal and stays in the body forever. Some think that the amount of mercury in vaccines is above the safe limit, although there really is no safe limit for mercury. The characteristics of autism and mercury poisoning are almost identical.