How dangerous is measles?

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From http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/blogs/ojohn/how-dangerous-measles

How dangerous is measles?

MAR 27, 2013
By Sarah Loving

In 1962 Roald Dahl's daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis. Measles causes encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) in about one in every thousand children who get it. Encephalitis is still an extremely serious condition which is difficult to treat and almost always requires admission to an intensive care unit.

Soon after Olivia died, Roald Dahl wrote the following account in a school exercise book, which he kept hidden away at the back of a drawer in his writing shed. It describes taking his daughter into hospital after she had collapsed at home.

Awful drive. Lorries kept holding us up on narrow roads. Got to hospital. Ambulance went to wrong entrance. Backed out. Arrived. Young doctor in charge. Mervyn and he gave her 3mg sodium amatol. I sat in hall. Smoked. Felt frozen. A small single bar electric fire on wall. An old man in next room. Woman doctor went to phone. She was trying urgently to locate another doctor. He arrived. I went in. Olivia lying quietly. Still unconscious. She has an even chance, doctor said. They had tapped her spine. Not meningitis. It’s encephalitis. Mervyn left in my car. I stayed. Pat arrived and went in to see Olivia. Kissed her. Spoke to her. Still unconscious. I went in. I said, “Olivia… Olivia.” She raised her head slightly off pillow. Sister said don’t. I went out. We drank whiskey. I told doctor to consult experts. Call anyone. He called a man in Oxford. I listened. Instructions were given. Not much could be done. I first said I would stay on. Then I said I’d go back with Pat. Went. Arrived home. Called Philip Evans. He called hospital. Called me back. “Shall I come?” “Yes please.” I said I’d tell hospital he was coming. I called. Doc thought I was Evans. He said I’m afraid she’s worse. I got in the car. Got to hospital. Walked in. Two doctors advanced on me from waiting room. How is she? I’m afraid it’s too late. I went into her room. Sheet was over her. Doctor said to nurse go out. Leave him alone. I kissed her. She was warm. I went out. “She is warm.” I said to doctors in hall, “Why is she so warm?” “Of course,” he said. I left.

In the mid-1980s, over twenty years later, Roald Dahl wrote the following passage, aimed at parents who were refusing to give their children the measles vaccine. (The number of deaths from measles has fallen to almost zero in the UK since this was written. See the 'More information' section of our Measles page for up-to-date information about measles deaths in the UK.)

...

More at link.

[Miigwech]

1. I know mother who is convinced that vaccinations

will maim or kill her child.

[Aristus]

2. She's the one trying to kill her child.

I hope you can talk some sense into her...

[BigmanPigman]

3. Dahl was married to Academy Award winner/actress Patricia Neal too.

She was in Hud, A Face In the Crowd and the Fountainhead. Dahl also invented a medical device to aid his baby son after he was hit by a taxi and was key in helping Patricia after experiencing debilitating strokes and a coma.

[ChazInAz]

4. My story

From personal experience, I know the dangers of these "Childhood diseases.
I had every single one of them.
When and where I was born (Behind the Iron Curtain), the only vaccination available was for smallpox.
Mumps took out a lot of my hearing and damaged my salivary glands.
Measles took out some more hearing and gave me the tinnitus that I still hear nonstop. I still remember being awakened by that loud ringing sound and the incessant whine of cicadas that only I could hear, frightened because I didn't know what it was.
Chicken pox left me with some interesting scars.
Whooping cough? I still have nightmares, sixty-five years later, of standing on the mattress, gasping for breath, slowly strangling.
Then polio. The Salk vaccine came a little late for me. It was a mild case and I recovered fairly well. I tired easily and have never been strong, since. Now, it's starting to come back. I may have a few more parts on stage as an actor, but someday soon I'll be forced to quit.

I do not understand the unthinking fools who won't vaccinate their children.

[murielm99]

5. I went to high school with a boy I have been thinking about

a lot lately.

We baby boomers did not have the benefit of measles vaccines. This boy had a wasted life because of measles.

(I am grateful that my children had the benefit of the vaccine. I don't understand parents who don't see this)!

The boy I went to school with was a nice, ordinary kid. I knew him because our last names started with the same letter and we sat next to each other in a lot of classes.

He was drafted. He got measles in a foreign country. He ended up with measles encephalitis. He was never the same. He spent the rest of his life in a VA hospital, and died before he was sixty.