Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
2
pubmed:dateCreated
1988-6-29
pubmed:abstractText
Most hospital studies of measles mortality suggest that high case fatality ratios are associated with malnutrition. However, no community study has documented this association. On the contrary, several community studies from Africa and Asia have found no relation between nutritional status and risk of severe or fatal measles. Instead, overcrowding and intensive exposure may be more important determinants of measles mortality. Clustering of several cases in the family and/or intensive exposure were associated with high measles mortality in community studies in West Africa, Bangladesh, and England. Thus sociocultural factors that concentrate many susceptible children in the home may increase the case-fatality ratio in measles. Conversely, this ratio will be lower when measles cases are dispersed. Siblings in rural areas, where long intervals separate epidemics, run a higher risk of contracting measles simultaneously than do their urban counterparts. Measles vaccination increases herd immunity and diminishes the clustering of several cases in a family. Vaccination may therefore reduce mortality even among unvaccinated children who contract measles. Crowding and intensive exposure may partly explain regional and historical variations in measles mortality; community studies suggest that mortality is high when a high proportion of measles patients have secondary cases (acquired through exposure at home).
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:issn
0162-0886
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
10
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
478-91
pubmed:dateRevised
2005-11-16
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:articleTitle
Malnutrition and overcrowding/intensive exposure in severe measles infection: review of community studies.
pubmed:affiliation
Institute of Ethnology and Antropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Review