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Grieving Mum shares touching post to remember her precious daughter who sadly died from measles.

An Australian Mum is remembering her beautiful daughter Laine, who passed away 23 years ago today from complications of the measles.

“Today is 23 years since we lost our beautiful Laine from the dreaded SSPE, complication of measles.

In this photo she had gone blind and kept saying everything was white and begged to she my face one more time, the hardest thing I have ever heard.

A week later she couldn’t speak anymore.

This is not a sympathy post but for all to speak her name today and tell someone, like you all do! How important it is to immunise.

Laine caught measles six weeks before immunisation was due. ”

This is the cost of not vaccinating – infecting others who are vulnerable, and causing potentially fatal outcomes.

What is SSPE?

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a rare and chronic form of progressive brain inflammation caused by a persistent infection with measles virus (which can be a result of a mutation of the virus itself). The condition primarily affects children and young adults.

It has been estimated that about 1 in 10,000 people infected with measles will develop SSPE.

Signs and symptoms of measles

Once exposed to the virus, it can take 10 to 12 days for symptoms to appear. Your child can get the virus from someone who doesn’t even know they have measles yet.

Measles will start with cold-like symptoms, such as a fever, cough, runny nose, sore or red eyes and being more tired or lethargic than usual.
After two or three days, a distinctive rash will appear. The rash is red and blotchy and starts on the head, before spreading to the rest of the body.

Most children who have measles are sick for less than a week, and should start to feel better about two days after the rash appears. The cough may persist for two weeks.

Sometimes, measles can cause a secondary infection – children may get ear infections, pneumonia or diarrhoea and vomiting when they have measles. A rare but serious complication of measles is encephalitis (inflammation of the brain).

Vaccinate!

In Australia, the MMR vaccination is given to all children at 12 months, and a second dose (the MMRV) is given at 18 months. These vaccinations cover measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.

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  • How very sad. It is always brave for these parents to speak up, given the viciousness of anti vaxxers.

    Reply

  • Some diseases for which vaccinations should be given spread through areas including schools very quickly. By the time you know you have it you may have passed it on to somebody else.

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  • How many times do these things need to happen before people will learn?

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  • So very tragic! Vaccinations are there to protect all – those vaccinated and those that aren’t !

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  • So scary when your little ones aren’t old enough to be vaccinated yet.

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  • Such an important thing to share and raise awareness. It’s not worth the risks to your child’s health. Always, always, always vaccinate unless you have genuine medical grounds not to. You aren’t just protecting your own child, but every person they come into contact with by extension.

    Reply

  • Aw bless, so sad ! Strong that mum still advocates for this after 23 years.

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  • A lovely informative post – anyone who reads this will know that vaccination is the best thing to prevent this happening again to someone else.

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  • It’s so sad when a death could have been prevented by an immunisation.

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  • I’m glad this Mum is still advocating the message of vaccination. I couldn’t imagine having to go through a child slowly diminish like that.

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  • Scary, I’m so glad my bubba is due to get this soon

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  • Thats really sad and could have been avoided.

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  • So sad and scary. Just proves that vaccines work and everybody should be having them.

    Reply

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