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TIL of Dawson disease, a horrific complication of measles (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/todayilearned@lemmy.ml
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Also called Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), it affects like 1 in 5,000 people who contract measles (vaccinated), but jumps to 1 in 609 in the unvaccinated.

Basically, you get measles and then seem fine, but anywhere from months to 15+ years later, you develop brain inflammation, seizures, spasms, blindness, and coma, and it’s basically 100% fatal. The disease attacks your nerves and brain. There’s no treatment or cure, and it hurts the whole time you’re dying. It can take months or more of excruciating suffering to kill you. It’s similar to rabies, in that you lose all control and are guaranteed a protracted, painful death.

It’s preventable by getting the measles vaccine.

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[–] [S] 1 point 10 months ago*

There are numbers missing: the vast amount of people who don’t contract measles because they were vaccinated isn’t identified here – just those who contract it despite being vaccinated (which is a much smaller amount of the population). Of those, 1 in 5,000 will get Dawson disease.
This is why it jumps so much in unvaccinated populations.

The 1 in 5,000 number is of people who do contract measles even though they were vaccinated, which is very small compared to unvaccinated numbers.

There are 2 sets of numbers here, and it’s only talking about that subset. Does that make sense?

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