Rubella (Rubeola)

The Rubella is a highly contagious infectious disease that is caused by the rubella virus. Since the rubeola usually occur in childhood, they are also known as childhood disease. However, even adults are infected with one of these so-called childhood diseases. But this is only possible if they do not have the disease in childhood already been through once. Withstood by a disease you acquire is usually a lifelong immunity against the virus. The rubella run harmlessly in children in general, can sometimes be encountered complications in adults.

A rubella infection during pregnancy can cause malformations in the fetus

Serious implications can have a rubella infection during pregnancy: Especially in the first third of pregnancy at risk of transmitting the virus to the unborn child, spontaneous abortion, prematurity or severe malformations, which are collectively referred to as congenital rubeola syndrome (CRS). The congenital rubella syndrome is also called congenital rubeola syndrome or Gregg 's syndrome.

The Australian ophthalmologist Norman Gregg (1892-1966), after whom the syndrome was later named, treated in 1941 - a year after a rubella epidemic in Australia - while three babies with congenital cataract ( lens opacity, cataract ). These are - as we now know - to manage a possible abnormality after an infection of the fetus rubeola.

This clustering of cases was surprised the doctors. In the waiting room of his practice he became ill were accidentally witnesses a conversation in which the mothers talked about the three babies that, in the year before at the "German measles", as the rubeola in Britain and North America are called colloquially. Gregg then researched in its medical records and asked his colleagues to look for similar cases. There were numerous other cases that Gregg examined in detail and documented.

First, the experts doubted his results, because this time the doctors could rubella virus shown yet. Only as a statistician and epidemiologist Greggs data mathematically analyzed and the relationship between the virus and the clinic was statistically highly probable that his results have been acknowledged worldwide.

The congenital rubella syndrome

In addition to the congenital cataracts brought the Gregg on the track of the congenital rubeola syndrome, an infection of the unborn child, other injuries can result. They depend mainly on it, took place at what stage of pregnancy, the infection of the unborn child. In the first month of pregnancy, it is usually eye abnormalities such as cataracts. During infection in the second month of pregnancy, especially heart disease and threaten damage to the central nervous system. In the third month often occur inner ear damage that can lead to deafness. Today in Germany there is a notification requirement for CRS in accordance with the Infection Protection Act. In 2006, a congenital rubeola syndrome at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has been recorded.