• 9 months ago
The mother of a girl who died of complications from having measles as a baby has urged parents to get their children vaccinated.

Rebecca Archer's daughter Renae, ten, died after it was discovered she had a very rare brain disease called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). The condition is a progressive neurological disorder that affects the central nervous system and can be caused by catching measles.

Renae caught measles when she was five months old - but she was too young to have the jab then. Rebecca, from Salford, is now urging parents to give their children their vaccinations, as she believes that if more kids had the jab, then she wouldn't have got measles as a baby.
Transcript
00:00 It's like a nightmare.
00:01 It's still hard to believe that's why Renee's not here anymore.
00:07 Because of having the measles ten years previous.
00:10 She was just really lovely and caring and liked to make everyone laugh.
00:15 She always had a smile and a face.
00:18 She always seemed the positive in everything as well.
00:20 I phoned for an ambulance and we got to the hospital
00:29 and that's when we discovered she had the measles.
00:32 She was in hospital overnight.
00:35 I think it was the next night she went home and we isolated.
00:41 She was poorly for a few days.
00:43 After that I feel like that's normal.
00:45 She was fit and healthy.
00:47 She had one every week and then I think it was the third seizure
00:56 where they'd done an MRI
01:00 and then that's when they discovered there was some swelling on her brain.
01:05 Her motor functions started to deteriorate.
01:10 She just slowly couldn't speak or eat.
01:13 When she went into ICU they didn't know what was actually causing.
01:18 It was actually the measles and it was SSPA.
01:23 That's when they told me it was going to be fatal.
01:27 Then we had to make a decision to turn the machines off.
01:31 She'd not had the MMI because she was under 12 months old.
01:51 If there wasn't an outbreak and more kids had the vaccinations
01:55 then she wouldn't have got the measles in the first place.
01:59 And it wouldn't have ultimately ended her life.
02:06 [Music plays]

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