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Getting Measles Resets The Body’s Immune System

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Measles, a contagious childhood disease, is once more on the rise globally. But new research finds that it is more harmful than previously thought.

 

An international team of researchers led by scientists at Harvard carried out a new analysis of 77 unvaccinated children from the Netherlands. They found that the virus erases the body’s memory of previous pathogens — effectively wiping its immunity memory.

 

The virus eliminated between 11% and 73% of the children’s protective antibodies, blood proteins responsible for “remembering” previous encounters with disease, the team wrote in the journal Science on Thursday. This left some of the children infected with measles with immunity close to that of a newborn baby.

 

Speaking to AFP, Harvard epidemiologist and coauthor Michael Mena said:

“It sort of resets your immune system back to sort of a more naive state.”

 

measles

 

He also added that they can rebuild their defences. But to do that, they will need to face exposure to numerous pathogens as they were in their infancy.

 

To validate their result, the team then carried out experiments on macaque monkeys, with the animals losing 40% to 60% of their protective antibodies.

 

Study co-author and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Stephen Elledge said:

“The virus is much more deleterious than we realized. [This] means the vaccine is that much more valuable.”

 

Source: AFP

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