Professor Louise Kenny CBE is Executive Pro Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool. Louise – who is also a medical doctor, was a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist from 2006-2018. In this blog, she recounts her experience of treating a young boy who caught measles when he was a baby and sadly did not survive.
You have probably heard a lot about measles in the news. There is a large outbreak in Birmingham and Coventry mainly affecting children under 10 years old. Many children have needed to be admitted to hospital.
When I was a 21-year-old medical student, I was on placement at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. It was during this time that I met a young patient, an experience that I will never forget.
The young patient was Ben*. A little boy, aged around eight or nine years old, who was transferred to the ward I was rostered to after having a seizure. Ben had been infected with measles when he was a baby, but at the time had made a full recovery and was a happy and healthy boy, until now.
His parents were understandably very concerned. Ben was usually a bright, bubbly boy who enjoyed school and football, but for about six months before the seizure, he was not himself anymore. He had stopped playing football, he was struggling with his schoolwork, and was becoming more and more withdrawn as the weeks went on.
Tests revealed that Ben had a condition called Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE). This is a progressive neurological disorder that is caused by measles and affects the central nervous system. There is no cure. The initial symptoms of SSPE are hard to spot and include changes in behaviour and memory loss. The condition gets worse over time, and by the time Ben reached me at Alder Hey, he was blind and could no longer walk or talk.
Over the next couple of weeks, the medical team did everything they could to help little Ben. His parents never left his side during this time, but unfortunately, his health kept getting worse, not better, and he sadly died. This was harrowing to watch. During the entire time in our care, Ben never woke up, so his parents didn’t get to speak to him one last time, or say goodbye. I will never forget the anguished cries of his mother.
The medical team treating Ben, including me, were hit hard by this experience. At the time, I remember the Consultant comforting us by saying that will likely never see a case of SSPE or measles again, because the MMR vaccine was being given to babies, which will result in herd immunity and eventually the disease being eradiated forever. During this time, this small glimmer of hope felt like sunshine, and acted as a perfect – yet devastating – lesson about the importance of community immunity.
Ben’s experience and this lesson stayed with me. I would frequently think about Ben, his utterly distraught parents and how and why he died. Several years later, I became a mum myself and I took my firstborn and his brother for their vaccines the second I could. I remember how relieved I felt when they were given the MMR vaccine as 18-month-old toddlers and how utterly grateful I was for the miracle of modern medicine, which protected my children and threw a protective ring around our community. I felt comforted by the idea that no parent will go through what Ben’s mum and dad went through.
That comfort ended in 1998, when Andrew Wakefield published a paper in a medical journal suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Since then, Wakefield’s work was found to be mostly made up and many rigorous studies from doctors and academics have found there is no link at all between the vaccine and autism.
Unfortunately, the damage was done, and Wakefield’s paper managed to plant a seed of doubt in many peoples’ minds, which has turned into an ‘anti-vaxx’ movement. This movement has preyed on parents’ valid concerns for their child’s health and wellbeing and has sadly resulted in fewer mums and dads taking their child for their vaccinations, in both this country and elsewhere.
In 1992, the year Ben died, just two children died in the UK of measles. Ben was one of them. They should have been some of the last children to die from measles in the UK as the MMR vaccination programme, which was introduced in 1988, was and is free, widely available and offers lifelong protection against measles. Instead, measles is on the rise again.
Last year, there were about 250 confirmed measles cases in England. Most cases were in children under 10 years old. All of those children are at risk of SSPE. We can eradicate measles and protect everyone if enough of us get vaccinated. Vaccination is one the smartest and most community spirited things we can do. I’ve always known that Liverpool is a special place, we are a special clan. So, let’s look out for ourselves and each other; get vaccinated and make measles history.
*Name changed for confidentiality
How to protect yourself and your children from measles
There is a simple, easy, safe and very effective way of protecting yourself from measles – the MMR vaccine. You can get it on the NHS for free from your GP practice.
Book a vaccine now
If your child’s vaccines are not up to date, book at the GP practice. Check your child’s Red Book if you are not sure or call the GP practice.
If you are not registered for a GP practice: find your nearest practice and get registered by checking: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/gps/how-to-register-with-a-gp-surgery/
For more information, visit: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/measles/
