{"id":10349,"date":"2025-09-17T17:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T22:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=10349"},"modified":"2025-09-17T17:11:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T22:11:13","slug":"child-dies-from-complications-of-measles-years-after-infection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/09\/17\/child-dies-from-complications-of-measles-years-after-infection\/","title":{"rendered":"Child dies from complications of measles years after infection"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/child-dies-from-complications-of-measles-years-after-infection-sspe-explained-265220\">The Conversation<\/a> A school-age child has died from a devastating brain complication of measles in Los Angeles, highlighting the deadly consequences of declining vaccination rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The child, who was too young to receive the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/topics\/measles-4021\">measles<\/a>&nbsp;vaccine, developed&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/books\/NBK560673\/\">subacute sclerosing panencephalitis<\/a>&nbsp;(SSPE) \u2013 a progressive and almost always fatal brain condition that strikes years after initial measles infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SSPE affects around one in 10,000 people who contract measles, but the risk soars to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC11808179\/#:%7E:text=Epidemiology,-The%20global%20prevalence&amp;text=Garg%20et%20al.,and%20diagnostics%20of%20SSPE%20cases.\">one in 600<\/a>&nbsp;for infants infected before their first birthday. The condition causes progressive brain scarring and inflammation, typically emerging six to eight years after the original measles infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.encephalitis.info\/types-of-encephalitis\/other\/subacute-sclerosing-pan-encephalitis-sspe\/\">Early symptoms<\/a>&nbsp;can be mistaken for learning difficulties or concentration problems. But over months, patients develop rapidly worsening dementia, uncontrollable jerking movements and seizures. Despite treatment attempts with antiviral and anti-inflammatory drugs, nearly all patients die within five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tragedy underscores growing concerns about measles outbreaks in countries with previously high vaccination coverage. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported nearly&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/measles\/data-research\/index.html\">1,500 measles cases<\/a>&nbsp;so far this year alone.<\/p>\n<!-- <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" title=\"KCkSdjO  OP kLb QV vksp \">KCkSdjO  OP kLb QV vksp <\/a> --><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation A school-age child has died from a devastating brain complication of measles in Los Angeles, highlighting the deadly consequences of declining vaccination rates. The child, who was too young to receive the&nbsp;measles&nbsp;vaccine, developed&nbsp;subacute sclerosing panencephalitis&nbsp;(SSPE) \u2013 a progressive and almost always fatal brain condition that strikes years after initial measles infection. SSPE affects [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-measles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10350,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10349\/revisions\/10350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}