I had measles as a child and didn’t have to experience measles as an adult. However, I did have someone very close to me experience measles as an adult. The doctors at the hospital told me that if I had not gotten her to the hospital when I did, she would have died in less than six hours. Even then she wasn’t out of the woods. It was the pneumonia the measles infection caused that would have killed her. She was drowning from the fluid in her lungs. It would be another three days before the doctors declared the crisis over.
Measles can be serious. Children younger than 5 years of age and adults older than 20 years of age are more likely to suffer from complications. Common complications are ear infections and diarrhea. Serious complications include pneumonia and encephalitis.
She would survive, but before we knew that, her family rushed to her side not knowing if she would.
She nor her parents had been anti-vax, but they had been out of the country often enough that she and her brother missed the outbreaks in the late 50s and early 60s here in the U.S.
Today’s parents intentionally exposing their children to possibility catching a disease that can be avoided is mind blowing.