What is the course of the disease?

The disease begins with a so-called stage catharrale. This stage begins about eight to ten days after the infection and manifests itself as fever, a strong feeling of illness, photophobia, conjunctivitis and cold. A rash appears on the oral mucosa with so-called Kolpik spots. After a short decrease of the fever, the already described exanthema appears, whereby the fever symptoms increase again. After four to five days, the exanthema recedes.

How contagious are measles?

Measles is one of the most infectious diseases of all and is transmitted by direct contact or by droplet infection. This includes direct contact with infectious secretions from the nose and throat, but also inhalation of infectious droplets produced when speaking, sneezing and coughing. The measles virus causes almost 100% of the outbreak of the disease even with very short contact.

This is described by the contact index. This describes the proportion of a population in which the outbreak of the disease occurs after contact with the pathogen. In the case of measles it is almost one.

This means that actually everyone who has contact with the virus falls ill. The incubation period, the time between infection and the appearance of the first symptoms, is usually eight to ten days for measles until the outbreak of the preliminary stage and about 14 days until the outbreak of the typical rash (exanthema). There is a risk of infection from three to five days before the onset of exanthema until four days after. The greatest risk is immediately before the outbreak of the rash.The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that measles is already contagious before it is visible to the sufferer and everyone else around him.

Can one get measles despite vaccination?

A disease caused by the morbillivirus despite vaccination is very rare. Nevertheless, as with any vaccination, there are so-called vaccination failures. However, this percentage is very low. If symptoms of a measles infection despite vaccination, a doctor should still be consulted. As a rule, the infection is much milder than without vaccination.