Today on TV3 Bulletin Utama, Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek urged the public not to be worry about Consumers Association of Penang (CAP)’s warning about the new type of measles known as Atypical Measles. According to Datuk Dr Chua, CAP told the public that people who had already been given measles vaccination can still infected by a new and more deadly measles known as Atypical Measles. Datuk Dr Chua lambasted CAP for misleading the public.
“I’ve never heard or read of Atypical Measles!” Said Datuk Dr Chua.
To stress his point further, he asked a man next to him whether he knows about this measles.
“Never heard of it”, the man answered.
Now, I think our Health Minister here did not do his research before he attends this news conference. I know Datuk Dr Chua is a doctor but I don’t know whether he is a medical doctor or PHD in another field. Nevertheless I am curious to find out whether or not this Atypical measles exist. Afterall, CAP will not issue a warning to the consumer without researching of the matter concerned.
In order to find out whether there is a measles known as Atypical measles, I did a search using “Atypical Measles” as keywords on Google and Dogpile.
Surprisingly, Atypical Measles is not new to the medical world. University of Miami, School of Medicine said,
“AMS occurs in persons who were incompletely immunized against measles. This may happen if a person were given the old killed-virus measles vaccine (which does not provide complete immunity and is no longer available); or the person were given attenuated (weakened) live measles vaccine that was, by accident, inactivated during improper storage. Immunization with inactivated measles virus does not prevent measles virus infection. It can, however, sensitize a person so that the expression of the disease is altered, resulting in AMS. Being atypical, AMS can be confused with other entities including Rocky Mountain spotted fever, meningococcal infection, various types of pneumonia, appendicitis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, etc.”
Whereas National Centre of Bioscience Library said,
“The atypical measles syndrome is a relatively new disease that was first recognized 15 years ago. Initially, it occurred in children who were exposed to wild measles virus several years after they were immunized with killed measles vaccine. It was characterized by a two- to three-day prodrome of high fever, cough, headache, and myalgia followed by a rash that resembled Rocky Mountain spotted fever, scarlet fever, or varicella and associated with roentgenographic evidence of pneumonia with or without pleural effusion. This report highlights three unusual manifestations of this syndrome: 1) transient hepatitis, 2) persistence of pulmonary lesions for several years, and 3) occurrence of excessively high measles hemagglutination-inhibition antibody titers. Today, this syndrome occurs predominantly in adolescents and young adults.”
Now Datuk Dr Chua, have u heard of Atypical Measles?