Measles: Symptoms and Treatment

• Characteristics:
It is a rash illness caused by measles virus. It occurs most frequently in childhood and mainly affects children under one year. The disease is characterized by fever, headache, feeling ill, all symptoms common to all viral diseases, the second or third day the rash appears that in this case begins on the face and spreads to the trunk and then to the extremities. The spots are reddish, the size of a grain of rice.

It is characterized as enantemática, and also affects the mucous inside the mouth are a few small white dots are called Koplick spots. Another feature is the triple cold: no runny nose, eye irritation and laryngitis. It is a mild disease and has a mortality rate of 1 / 1000. Before the vaccine virus was escalating on a biennial basis. Every two years the number of cases grew. With vaccination cycle was lengthened to four or five years. When you increase the number of cases, mortality rises to one in 500, and even goes one every 100. This disease is most sensitive in under a year and among the adults they may have respiratory or neurological complications.

• How to develop:
The incubation period is two weeks prior also. The infection occurs two days before the spots appear on the skin and up to four or five days after the outbreak. After 7 days the rash clears and there's no sequel.

• Treatment:
is to control fever without neglecting bacterial complications that require antibiotics.