Princeton, NJ - According to Rose Huber, "The measles virus can cause serious disease in children by temporarily suppressing their immune systems. This vulnerability was previously thought to last a month or two, however, a new study shows that children may in fact live in the immunological shadow of measles for up to three years, leaving them highly susceptible to a host of other deadly diseases."
Published in the journal Science, the study, led by researchers from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, provides epidemiologic evidence that measles may throw the body into a much longer-term state of "immune amnesia," where essential memory cells that protect the body against infectious diseases are partially wiped out.
"We already knew that measles attacks immune memory, and that it was immunosuppressive for a short amount of time. But this paper suggests that immune suppression lasts much longer than previously suspected," said C. Jessica Metcalf, co-author and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs at Princeton. "In other words, if you get measles, three years down the road, you could die from something that you would not die from had you not been infected with measles."
For the full story: http://www.princeton.edu/research/news/features/a/?id=15010
"We already knew that measles attacks immune memory, and that it was immunosuppressive for a short amount of time. But this paper suggests that immune suppression lasts much longer than previously suspected," said C. Jessica Metcalf, co-author and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs at Princeton. "In other words, if you get measles, three years down the road, you could die from something that you would not die from had you not been infected with measles."
For the full story: http://www.princeton.edu/research/news/features/a/?id=15010
