Abstract
Measles remains an important vaccine-preventable disease, particularly in the developing
countries. The disease at times is accompanied by numerous complications in the backdrop
of malnutrition. Of these, the neurologic complications are the most devastating.
The neurological involvement in measles encompasses at least four distinct conditions,
namely, primary measles encephalitis (PME), acute postinfectious measles encephalomyelitis
(APME), measles inclusion body encephalitis, and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.
The pathogenesis of PME or APME continues to be enigmatic with both immune mechanism
and direct viral invasion being variously incriminated. We report a fatal case of
measles encephalitis in a 3.5-year-old child, with a slow and indolent course over
a 1-month period with laboratory evidence of acute measles infection without any demonstrable
virus in the body fluid at the time of the encephalitis with typical magnetic resonance
imaging features.
Keywords
measles - encephalitis - neurologic complications
