A viral infection. Also called rubella.
A usually mild infectious viral disease seen mainly in children and young adults. Major symptoms are a red body rash, swollen lymph glands in the neck, and mild fever. The disease is dangerous if contracted by a woman during early pregnancy, since it may cause severe congenital defects in the baby. Vaccination prevents the disease.
A mild highly contagious virus infection, mainly of childhood, causing enlargement of lymph nodes in the neck and a widespread pink rash. The disease is spread by close contact with a patient. After an incubation period of 2-3 weeks a headache, sore throat, and slight fever develop, followed by swelling and soreness of the neck and the eruption of a rash of minute pink spots, spreading from the face and neck to the rest of the body. The spots disappear within seven days but the patient remains infectious for a further3-4 days. An infection usually confers immunity. As German measles can cause fetal malformations during early pregnancy, girls should be immunized against the disease before puberty.
A mild contagious disease characterized by a rash and general enlargement of the glands in the body. The usual incubation period is 17 to 18 days. Sometimes the enlarged tender glands in the neck appear before the rash, which is paler than that of measles (rubeola), quickly spreads across the body and, usually, just as quickly fades away. There is very little general disturbance. The temperature may not be raised more than one or two degrees, and often is not raised at all. The importance of the disease lies to the fact that 25 percent of the women contracting it in the first two or three months of pregnancy will bear infants with cataracts, heart malformations, deaf-mutism, and other defects. A woman coming in contact with a case of German measles in the early weeks of pregnancy and not previously having had the disease herself, can be given temporary protection by an injection of gamma globulin. By far the best prophylactic, however, is to ensure that all girls contract German measles during childhood, for one attack apparently gives protection for life. It has been suggested quite seriously that when the disease appears in a district all the little girls should get together at tea parties with the infected child so that they all get it and so remove the risk to their own babies should they eventually become mothers. Also called rubella.