Rubella: Pathology and Etiology (Pediatric Nursing)

00:01 Now let's cover rubella. Rubella is a contagious viral infection. It is vaccine-preventable.

00:07 It's also called German measles or 3-day measles and it's usually a mild illness.

00:13 This is caused by the rubella virus which is a single-stranded RNA virus and it can affect people of any age.

00:20 This was first described clinically in 1740 and all of the initial descriptions were by German physicians, giving it the name German measles.

00:29 The name became rubella from the Latin word meaning 'little red' during an outbreak in India in 1866.

00:35 The teratogenic properties were identified by an Australian ophthalmologist in 1941.

00:40 There have been several notable outbreaks in history resulting in miscarriages which is spontaneous abortion, deafness, blindness, and developmental delay.

00:50 A live attenuated vaccine was licensed in 1969 and this is the 3rd disease to be eliminated from the Western Hemisphere with vaccination, after smallpox and polio.

01:01 So how is this transmitted? Well, it's transmitted person to person via the respiratory route and this is by droplets.

01:08 Coughing, sneezing, laughing, or talking.

01:11 Rubella can also be acquired during pregnancy via vertical transmission and this is where an entrauterine infection can occur when rubella spreads from an infected pregnant woman through her placenta, causing congenital rubella syndrome in the baby or CRS.

01:27 Babies with CRS can spread this virus for more than one year.

01:31 So the transmission of rubella.

01:33 You're infectious during the week before and the week after the appearance of the rash.

01:37 Humans are solely infected and insects do not spread this disease.

01:41 The pathology of rubella.

01:44 Well, the virus is going to get in via the mucosa and the respiratory route.

01:48 It's gonna replicate in the nasopharynx and the lymph nodes.

01:51 And then the infection is gonna establish in the skin and the other tissues, and finally the patient will get symptoms.

01:57 It can cross the placenta and it's teratogenic because the virus can stop the cells from developing in the fetus.