With measles cases prominent in the news of late, there have been a few interesting reports and interviews from Queensland’s local Acting Senior Director for Communicable Diseases, Dr Stephen Lambert.

The measles virus has a basic reproduction number (R0) – the average number of new cases from each contact – of 12-18. This defines measles as one of the most contagious infectious diseases of humans and reflects the ease with which it spreads via a respiratory route.

Measles also has some serious clinical consequences. Dr Lambert noted that up to a third of infected young adults end up hospitalized. Serious complications include blindness, encephalitis, diarrhoea, ear infections, and pneumonia. Most people recover within 2-3 weeks, though.

The measles virus is shed from an infected person from 4 days before to 4 days after the characteristic rash appears. It is spread through sneezes and coughs, which produce small droplets that can be inhaled or land on a surface and be transported by fingers to the nose or mouth. The virus can last out in the open for at least 2 hours.

Measles is a preventable disease.

Dr. Lambert noted the importance of being up-to-date with your measles vaccination. He recently published the idea that airlines could play a more significant role in rapidly contacting passengers who may have been in contact with a subsequently identified measles case. They could do this through contact details they already hold and social media. This would certainly speed up contact tracing and the notification of risk.

Dr Lambert is also busy with E. coli and norovirus outbreaks around southeast Queensland. Still, he has made time to ensure infection prevention and control communication is very well targeted to different audiences—including the public—where it can significantly impact. Public health communication and education of this quality should be applauded.

He penned a very nice article, “Community Immunity”, on vaccination for Brisbane’s Child magazine. [Sadly, that magazine has since disappeared- IMM, 29MAR2025].

In it, he notes the importance of vaccinating children to prevent diseases for which there is now little community memory. Diphtheria, tetanus, measles, haemophilus influenza type b, meningococcal C and poliomyelitis are diseases that once caused significant illness, disfigurement and death. 

It’s a testament to the success of vaccines that we see so little of these diseases and their severe impact today. The more recently rolled out rotavirus vaccine has decreased hospitalizations of children due to that viral infection by 90% in Queensland alone. Gastroenteritis hospitalizations are down by 60% overall (highlighting the impact of rotavirus).

This article’s fantastic quote touches on the broader impact of not vaccinating your children. Basically, if your child had a peanut allergy, you wouldn’t expose them to peanuts, and you wouldn’t be very happy if someone else did.

Why then make the choice to allow your children to become seriously ill by acquiring a preventable disease if there is a safe and simple way to avoid that? Also, some people cannot be vaccinated, and there are some people whom the vaccine does not “take”.

Herd immunity protects them because the virus cannot spread as effectively when it faces too many protected people, blocking infection and transmission. However, if the herd does not have a good vaccination uptake, it cannot protect them. It’s also worth noting that vaccines do not offer absolute immunity to infection. The vaccine doesn’t create a shield that prevents you from breathing in the virus and having it land on your cells, but it does stop the severe disease associated with infection.

*Imported Post

1. This post from 05SEPT2013 was posted over on my old blog platform virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au. It has now been moved to here and lightly edited for grammar and to add subheadings.