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Disclaimer!

This article and its major media content are produced by students to train science communication as part of a lecture about human infectious pathogens. The article does not represent official advice from the authorities. For authorized information about the disease in question, please refer to the official health authorities in your country or the World Health Organization.

By Laura Emonds, Anna Schwartz & Franziska Steffens

Have you ever heard of the term “childhood disease”? And have you wondered why, as for the
term, only children can get sick? Why not Mom and Dad, too? We will follow Mandy*, an eightyear-
old girl, who learns about the measles disease during the current outbreaks in the USA.

Only a childhood disease?

Mandy comes home from primary school and is fed up. Instead of meeting her best friends
she must come along to her baby brother Jack’s doctor’s appointment. Her parents explain to
her that Jack will be vaccinated against measles, a childhood disease. Now Mandy is intrigued
as one of her classmates is currently sick with measles. What is a childhood disease?

Diseases are called a childhood disease when the first infection happens during the childhood.
Infected people gain lifelong immunity, which means that they won’t suffer from the same
disease again. Therefore, children get infected more often than adults. Nevertheless,
unimmunized adults can fall ill with a childhood disease, too.

And what does an infection with measles look like? Mandy watches this video that explains the
cause and symptoms of the measles disease:

Potential aftermaths of a measles infection

Those symptoms look pretty heavy, right? But most people get well after about two weeks by
treating the fever with antipyretics. Most people, but not all. A measles infection weakens your
immune system, your body’s police system against invading germs, and you can fall ill with
pneumonia or in very rare cases can suffer a meningitis. Because of these secondary
infections you can even die or suffer from lifelong consequences like paralysis.

How can you protect yourself against
measles?

Now don’t worry about getting infected with measles. These days most children are vaccinated
at age one against measles just like Mandy and her brother Jack. Maybe ask your parents if
you have been vaccinated against measles. A vaccination protects you from an infection.
There are vaccinations not just for measles but for many other diseases like e.g. chickenpox,
too. Listen to the pediatrician, who answers Mandy’s questions and explains how vaccinations
work and why they need to inject the vaccine into your arm with a syringe.

You see, a vaccination is the best way to protect you and the people around you from getting
infected as the measles disease isn’t just a harmless childhood disease. An infection can have
lethal consequences for young and adults. In some countries like eg. Germany or the USA a
vaccination against measles is compulsory for attending day care and schools as the STIKO**
stated:

However, some people fear side effects of a vaccination or insist on their right to selfdetermination
over their own body and reject the vaccination. Nevertheless, objectively
speaking the benefits of a vaccination outweigh an unlikely risk of vaccination side effects and
prevent horrible, potential lethal courses of a measles infection.

This evening Mandy falls asleep knowing that she and her loved ones are safe just because
of one little prick.

*fictional character
**fictional social media post

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