The Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases has just treated a 56-year-old patient from Ky Anh, Ha Tinh who was diagnosed with measles. The patient had a high fever, rash, severe diarrhea, and secondary infection. The patient's condition continued to worsen with acute respiratory failure.
Measles symptoms are clearly identified, test results confirm positive for measles.
Dr. Pham Van Phuc - Deputy Head of the Intensive Care Unit, Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases - said: Measles is an acute, epidemic infectious disease caused by the measles virus, transmitted through the respiratory tract. Measles has typical symptoms of fever, rash, inflammation of the respiratory tract, conjunctivitis, and digestive problems. Measles can easily lead to serious and sometimes fatal complications including pneumonia and encephalitis.
Measles in adults rarely occurs. Adults with measles are often at risk of those who have never been vaccinated against measles; those with reduced immunity to measles over time; those with underlying diseases and immunodeficiencies; those undergoing chemotherapy, cancer, etc. In addition, adults are more subjective in disease prevention because they believe that only children get measles, making the disease easy to spread. When detecting unusual symptoms, people should go to a reputable medical facility for timely examination and treatment to avoid unfortunate complications.
Measles in adults is often not given the same attention as in children, which leads to a subjective mentality and not seeking medical attention for treatment, leading to many dangerous complications such as encephalitis, paralysis or epilepsy,...
Adults with measles may suffer from quadriplegia or sphincter disorders if there are complications such as meningitis or myelitis. In addition, measles patients are also at risk of pneumonia, bronchitis, blindness, etc. Pregnant women with measles are at risk of premature birth, miscarriage, etc.
If the patient is not properly cared for after the fever subsides, the fever may return with symptoms such as headache, convulsions, and coma. The disease is transmitted through the respiratory tract at a rapid rate and can easily become an epidemic.
Adults have a relatively low incidence of measles. Because most of them were infected as children and have antibodies from that time. However, measles in adults can still appear in cases where there are no antibodies. Usually, recorded cases have an incubation period of about 7 - 21 days before symptoms appear.
