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takes some two years to build-up a susceptible population, with the result
that typically in established urban areas measles attacks every other year.
The pattern is that late in the year which had up to then been free from
measles there would be some cases starting perhaps in November, rising
slowly in December, then more quickly in January to reach a peak in
February. The period of high incidence would be sustained for perhaps
two or three weeks and then be followed by a rapid decline to virtual
extinction by mid-summer. This district has never reached the stage of
this marked biennial beat. 1960 was a year of relative freedom, there
being only 180 cases. Of these, forty-seven were in the last week of the
year. This was the start of the outbreak of 1961 and came without the
usual warning. In January there was a weekly average of thirty-nine
notifications. This rose to 128 in February and to 242 in March. There
were 300 notifications in the week ending March 25th, the largest number
ever received in this district. The weekly notification figure fell to 174 in
April, to seventy-five in May, to forty-three in June, to seven in July and
to two in August. Some pupils at virtually all the maintained schools
were attacked in the spring term and some, about half of them, in the
summer term.
In general, the attacks were mild. The difference between today's
measles and the killing and crippling illness of only a few years ago, is
partly due to the causative organism being less virulent, partly to the
ability now to control with antibiotics the secondary invaders which
caused so much harm. Of the 3,091 cases notified none was removed to
hospital There were no deaths.
Vaccination. Up to recently, there was nothing which could be
given to induce active immunity to measles. All that was available was a
serum prepared in different ways which when injected would give passive
immunity. This, however, would last only a few weeks. Its use then was
limited to those whom it was especially necessary to protect against an
attack. These mostly would be very young children or children suffering
from some illness. Measles today is not the dread disease it was only a
few years ago. Not only are attacks in general less severe, but the various
measures to protect against or control the secondary invaders have
reduced its malignancy. Deaths from measles have declined from a figure
of 307 in 1949 to ninety-eight in 1959. Nevertheless, it can still be a serious
complaint, and it will be a great benefit when it becomes possible to
protect young children against the risk of contracting it, even though they
lose their immunity and succumb to attacks when they are older. It has
been especially prevalent in this country this last year when there were
more cases than in any year since the disease first became generally notifiable
in 1940.
There were hopes of its being possible to prepare a vaccine when in
1954 a measles virus was first grown in tissue culture. Vaccines have
recently been made. All children inoculated with them developed neutralising
antibody, and when later exposed to natural measles did not develop