Health authority advises vaccination against measles
The public health department of the city of Chemnitz advises people to check their measles immunisation and renew it if necessary. Parents in particular are called upon to check their children's immunisation. The background to this is the sporadic occurrence of the viral disease in the federal states of Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg and Saxony. A case has also been reported in Chemnitz for the first time in three years.
Currently, in the Free State of Saxony, a first combination vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella is recommended from the age of 12 months and the second vaccination from the age of 5 years (vaccination calendar). If necessary (incubation with measles), this second vaccination can also be given only 4 weeks before the first.
There is no age limit for a measles vaccination, i.e. all persons susceptible to measles can receive this standard vaccination from their family doctor.
Measles is an infectious disease that only occurs in humans and can be transmitted quickly to unprotected people through droplet infection when coughing, speaking or sneezing.
After an incubation period of 9 - 12 days, the first symptoms develop, initially in the form of signs of infection of the upper respiratory tract (fever, rhinitis). Typical during this time is the appearance of chalky, so-called Koplik's spots on the cheek mucosa. The disease is already contagious at this stage.
This is followed by the second phase of the disease, which is characterised by the typical brownish-pink rash, the so-called measles exanthema, which begins behind the ears and moves downwards over the body in 4 - 7 days. When it subsides, it often leaves behind a "bran-like" scaling. It remains infectious for four days after the rash appears. High fever also occurs again during this phase.
Possible complications of this infectious disease such as severe inflammation of the middle ears, lungs and brain can occur.
Anyone who has contracted measles once is protected against re-infection for life.