If the rash becomes very warm, red, or tender, the child may have a bacterial infection that requires antibiotics, and a physician should be called. Prompt medical treatment is also necessary if a child shows confusion, nervousness, vomiting, convulsions, lack of responsiveness, poor balance, or increasing sleepiness. Check with your pediatrician about getting this new type of shot. There is a vaccine for measles, yet the number of cases in the United States rose from fewer than 1,500 in 1983 to 27,672 cases in 1990. Measles may well be the most serious communicable disease of childhood, and it is also becoming more prevalent in adolescents and young adults who did not respond to vaccination.
Authorities now recommend a second measles, mumps, rubella vaccination after age five.
The incubation period for measles lasts from seven to 14 days. The disease is most communicable during the three to five days before the rash appears. Pre-rash symptoms last four to five days and include malaise, loss of appetite, inflamed eyelids, fever, sensitivity to light, hoarseness, runny nose, and a severe cough. Toward the end of this period, tiny, bluish-gray specks encircled by red appear in the mouth. A day or two after their appearance, the temperature shoots up, the oral spots slough off, and an itchy rash appears behind the ears and on the neck and cheeks.