General Discussion

The boy had contracted measles as a 7-month-old, when he was too young to be vaccinated. "He got the virus from a child in his neighborhood who was unvaccinated," says Cvijanovich, who now practices in New Mexico.

It was a relatively mild case of measles, and the infant recovered. She says he grew up to be a healthy, bright kid — an honor student.

Then in middle school, he started to develop troubling symptoms. "He started getting lost between classes, lost like he couldn't find what class to go to next," Cvijanovich says.

Worried, the teen's parents took him to a series of doctors to figure out what was wrong, until a pediatric neurologist finally suspected a condition called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, or SSPE. It's a degenerative neurological condition that typically develops seven to 10 years after a measles infection. It is almost always fatal. Cvijanovich was part of the hospital team that confirmed the diagnosis.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/17/nx-s1-5328765/measles-outbreak-health-risk