The Long-Term Measles Complication Most People Don't Know About

 https://time.com/article/2026/05/11/measles-complication-immune-system/

Measles, largely gone for decades in the developed world, has come roaring back. In January, the U.K. lost its status as a nation that had eliminated measles when the number of people vaccinated against the disease dropped below 95%, the threshold required to keep the highly contagious virus in check. The U.S., where outbreaks this year continue, may be on the same track. 

Vaccine hesitancy is behind the resurgence of disease—but measles is not, as anti-vaccine activists claim, a short-lived respiratory virus whose effects are over in days. Scientists now understand that measles’ primary target is in fact the immune system. In addition to causing rare but slow-burn, fatal neurological disorders that can kill a child years after a measles infection, the virus can also wipe the immune system’s memory, destroying cells that fight off other infections. 

Most people recover from measles. But even then, “their immunity to very common infections that they encounter, maybe on a daily basis, is weakened,” says Rik de Swart, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam in the Netherlands who has studied the phenomenon, which is sometimes known as immune amnesia. In some cases, it can take years to get back to normal.