Atypical Measles

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?

4 thoughts on “Atypical Measles”

  1. frank, he’s a medical doctor and he used to run a clinic not too far away from my dad’s office … but that was ages ago … this just reiterate the point that a medical doctor does not necessarily makes a good health minister … when ministerial positions are decided on political grounds rather than ability/merit … this is what we get … Bravo to MCA and OKT!!

  2. This reminds me to the time when I got Dengue Fever for the 2nd time and I went to my family doctor wif my suspision. He looked at me wif surprise and said to me that “Din u get it a year ago ??? You should haf developed immunity wat. Ur body would have produced antibodies to fight off the virus. But if u insist, we’ll do a blood test anyway.”Basket! Lucky I din belif him and went straight to the specialist in SJMC and their blood test results came back in 1 hour. Confirm I got Dengue !!!! Nah beh!!!According to the specialist, dengue becomes more dangerous the more times u’re infected because the virus kinda mutate in ur body n all dat shit lar. It adapts…..or watever lar. It was ages ago. Din quite remember what the doctor said.So there goes my confidence in him………….Doctor…….

  3. rosnovski: At least, his people in the ministry could brief him first before he goes for the news conference. How are we suppose to trust the Health Ministry if they make blunder like this. gguni: Man, it is always good to have second opinion when you come to things like this.

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