Wide spread demyelinating lesions develop in the brain and spinal cord, associated with lymphocytic infiltration and perivascular cuffing of adjacent blood vessels. Gillain Barre syndrome Poly-neuritis which develops a few days after the acute phase of a viral infection. The disease is due to demyelination of peripheral nerves . Patients present with an ascending paralysis, associated with paraesthesia. Like post infectious encephalomyelitis, it is believed to be an immunological phenomenon.
Patients usually recover spontaneously over a few weeks or months.
There is no specific treatment. Characteristically, these conditions have a long incubation period followed by slow development of symptoms and a progressive, uniformly fatal course. This is a rare, slowly progressive degenerative disease of the brain which develops six to eight years following a primary uncomplicated infection with measles virus. Clinical Features Patients usually present with personality and behavioural changes followed by progressive intellectual impairment, convulsions, myoclonic movements, coma and death. It is thought that the virus gains entry into the CNS during the viraemia that occurs at the time of the primary infection.