He measlesAlthough many people insist on considering it a benign disease, it is a disease that It can be very dangerous for what groups of society. A few years ago, since the vast majority of children vaccinated with measles, the cases in our country were minimal, very few, since there were hardly any unvaccinated children who could suffer and spread the disease (you know that children are excellent vehicles for viruses and diseases, because they catch many diseases and spread them very easily).
However, following the decrease in vaccination rates, caused by the decision of some parents not to vaccinate their children, the disease has reappeared and outbreaks have happened again in some parts of the country, and also in The rest of the world, of course. In this situation, people with the depressed immune system are at risk of suffering from the disease and an experimental medication could help them because he is getting good results when tested with animals.
I could avoid the infection
As the creators of the drug explain, by giving it to ferrets, who had previously been infected with a measles-like virus, the disease was controlled and their lives were not in danger. I say this about lives because the aforementioned virus does kill ferrets if nothing is done, and by medicating them, everyone survives.
The medicine, if it can finally be used with humans (there are still studies to prove that it is safe and effective with us), could protect people with health problems who cannot get vaccinated from measles (with cancer or other diseases left by the immune system low minimums) since, in case of catching the disease, it could stop the onset of symptoms and their consequences.
In unvaccinated children, in case of being infected with measles, it could also be used for the same purpose, to avoid greater risks due to possible side effects of the virus. However, it would be necessary to see if the parents prefer the medicine to the vaccine, since it is still a drug devised by the pharmaceutical industry to treat a disease that they consider benign.
The researchers, in any case, warn the following:
Measles is not a benign disease. Even after the disease is over, children have a suppressed immune response that can last for several months, leaving them at risk of bacterial infections ... This drug is not an alternative to the vaccine, but gives us an additional weapon against the virus. In combination with the vaccine, a medication that can quickly silence an outbreak can help us eradicate this disease.
But everything is very green
The pill is called ERDRP-0519 and thanks to it ferrets did not die after being infected with the virus. In fact, after taking the drug, a new subsequent infection of the same virus could not harm the ferrets, because they had taken the medicine previously.
The article was published in the magazine Science Translational Medicine and, although we already know that there is still a long way to go before the medicine becomes a reality, if one day it becomes, I wanted to talk about it to give importance to measles again, to show that researchers say it is not a benign disease and that, although this drug could be a real and effective treatment for measles, they still think that The first and ideal thing is for children to be vaccinated.
And it is not for less, since 2007, every year about 150,000 people die worldwide because of this disease.
