measles -- one scary virus

.

Well, I just learned a bunch of interesting things about measles, on The Conversation.

I already was aware that measles is one of the most contagious diseases we know about.  I was already aware that measles is a significant sickness which harms and even kills many children -- the article says over 140,000 children worldwide still die of measles ever year.

What I did not know was that vaccinating for measles prevents children from dying from other non-measles diseases.  !!!  Here's a quote from the article:  "Where measles vaccines have been introduced, childhood deaths often plummet by as much as 50%."

!!!

It seems that measles attacks many different kinds of cells in our bodies, including the cells in our immune systems which remember the diseases they have fought before.

Measles seems to cause our immune systems to forget everything they used to know about bad bugs they need to fight.  After infection by measles, our immune systems are very clear about the need to fight measles, but they have forgotten how to fight anything else we've ever had (or been vaccinated for).

Yikes.

And the only way to get that immunity back is to be exposed to all of that stuff all over again.

Yikes.

.