Measles!

Its very grey outside today...and damp. It fits my mood perfectly.
Also depressing is the news that measles are enjoying a comeback.
When a close friend told me she wasn’t bothering with the vaccination for her children about twenty years ago I was horrified and tried to persuade her to have it done. To no avail.
The problem with this is that no one young has seen anyone with measles. Or any of the other notifiable diseases. Living in a land where children were not dying or maimed by the childhood illness has made us complacent.
It shouldn’t have done.
Measles mostly doesn’t kill, though it can. But it does leave the child weak with other problems which persist into adulthood.
Me and my brother John had measles when were were young. He had it worse than me...but we lay side by side in beds made up downstairs for weeks!
It was before we had the NHS. Sending for a doctor was an expensive business as was the medicine. Penicillin was a very new invention then.
Looking back I realise we were lucky to have survived...it is a potential killer.
The news that it’s on it’s way back now is not good.
Every year I go for my flu shot....and this has kept me well for the last few years.
But the young mothers taking the decision not to have their children vaccinated against childhood illnesses could be putting them at risk.
Whooping cough, measles, chicken pox are all unpleasant and sometimes dangerous illnesses and if they are rare today it’s because we all took our children to be protected from them in their youth.
In the unlikely event that anyone of child bearing years is reading this please tell all your friends.....the injection might make their children a little unwell for a short time but it’s much better than having the real version which maims as well as kills some of those unfortunate enough to have it.
It is still avoidable if you get them vaccinated.
Sorry about the lecture..but I do care!


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