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In 2016, an easygoing Otodo-Gbame community, in Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State, was thrown into shock over the death of 20 children, all showing the same symptoms before death.
Unable to immediately fathom the cause of the deaths, initial reports attributed it to “a strange disease.”
The claim was, however, refuted after the results of the blood samples sent to three laboratories by the state government tested positive to measles.
Measles, according to experts, is a highly infectious disease caused by the rubeola virus. It can affect children and adults and usually a disaster if it gets into an unimmunised or unexposed community, as was the case of Otodo-Gbame.
According to the World Helath Organisation (WHO) measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus. Before the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred approximately every two to three years and measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.
The WHO said the disease remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine, adding that approximately 89, 780 people died from measles in 2016, mostly children under the age of five.
WHO explained that a virus in the paramyxovirus family causes measles and it is normally passed through direct contact and through the air. The virus infects the respiratory tract and then spreads throughout the body. It is a human disease and is not known to occur in animals.
Enlightening more on the mode of transmission, Dr. Joseph Onigbinde, Medical Director, Ropheka Medical and Dental Hospital, Akowonjo, Lagos, said the virus can be transmitted through direct contact, which can happen if an uninfected person touches a surface that has infected droplets of mucus and then putting fingers into the mouth, or rubbing the nose or eyes; or by air through respiration. This means that if someone who has measles sneezes or coughs, the disease can also transmit to someone else.
Onigbinde, who is also an Infectious Disease Specialist, said the virus remains active on an object or the air for two hours after it is infected.
Who can get it
Reports have it that about 90 per cent of people who are not immune will develop measles if they share a house with an infected person. Also, anyone who has never been infected or vaccinated is likely to become ill if they breathe in infected droplets or are in close physical contact with an infected person.
According to experts, as soon as the virus enters the body, it multiplies in the back of the throat, lungs, and the lymphatic system and later infects and replicates in the urinary tract, eyes, blood vessels, and central nervous system.
Onigbinde said the rubeola virus lives in the mucus of the nose and throat of an infected child or adult; takes one to three weeks to establish itself, but symptoms appear between nine and 11 days after initial infection and it is contagious for four days before the rash appears and continues to be contagious for about four to five days after the rash.
Symptoms
Measles rash is usually the commonest symptom that shows an individual has the disease. However, this cannot be relied on as it might be regarded as medicine after death, explained the specialist.
According to Onigbinde, anyone expecting to see a rash before they could conclude that it is measles is making a costly mistake, as the rash appears as the last symptom. He said the disease was likely to have been working in the individual or even transmitted to an unprotected person before the appearance of rashes.
Examining the symptoms, he asserted that the first sign of measles was usually a high fever, higher than 40 degree centigrade, noting that the fever begins about 10 to 12 days after exposure to the virus.
His words: “Those waiting to see rashes before they know a person has measles are mistaken because the virus will be working in that person’s body before the rashes. The first symptoms is usually a high temperature greater than 40 degree centigrade, runny nose, cough, watery eyes called conjunctivitis, that is the eyes will be red and bringing out water. Then a few days after the patient has been infected, he may have koplik spot, like spots on the cheek; if you see that on a child’s cheek just watch because he may be coming down with measles, later rashes starting from the face and spreading to the hands and feet and such rashes last about five to six days.
Rashes comes later between 14 to 18 days after the person is infected, which goes to say that the person may even have transmitted it before the occurrence of rashes.
Complications
Measles as an infectious disease does not just come and go. It can also be preceded by some serious complications, such as blindness, brain inflammation, dehydration and pneumonia. These complications, experts affirmed, are mainly present in malnourished people, just as they reiterated the importance of proper feeding.