Measles vaccination also protects against other diseases

Measles can bring dangerous complications and even be fatal. Not only that, but After a surviving the infection, the immune system may be affected for months and even years at a time, because the measles virus delete parts of the so-called immunological memory. As a result, the body is prepared for its own defense, then also against other diseases less well. Who is vaccinated, this has not to be feared.

A study from UK had shown that the immune system of 10 to 15 percent of the children were sick with measles, was affected up to five years later, still clear. Scientists of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands have now got to the puzzle to track down why I get sick after a measles infection is more likely to have other infections, such as otitis media or pneumonia.

The researchers have immune examined cells for the antibody production responsible. Of these cells, called memory wander to a past infections of cells by the body that recognize later re-infection, and lead to a rapid elimination of pathogens. This is the reason that you do not suffer from some diseases twice or the next Time less. In about ten percent of the people who had a measles infection, were gone these memory cells to a large extent, lost, and found it to be more immature immune cells.

This could show the researchers in an animal experiment: you inoculated ferrets against flu and infected a part of the animals then with a measles-like Virus (canine distemper virus). These animals have lost a majority of flu antibodies, and when they were later infected with the flu virus sufferers, you taupe in comparison to the animals without surviving dog infection severe flu – although all of the animals initially were have been vaccinated against flu.

ZOU