{"id":31303,"date":"2026-04-17T13:28:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=31303"},"modified":"2026-04-17T14:10:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:40:51","slug":"subacute-sclerosing-panencephalitis-sspe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/subacute-sclerosing-panencephalitis-sspe\/","title":{"rendered":"Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Maharashtra state government recently informed the Bombay High Court that it is yet to frame a policy to deal with Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE), an extremely rare but fatal neurodegenerative disease affecting children that has a fatality rate of 95%.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SSPE, also known as <\/span><b>Dawson disease,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a <\/span><b>progressive,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> disabling, and <\/span><b>deadly brain disorder related to measles (rubeola) infection.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The disease<\/span><b> develops many years after<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the<\/span><b> measles infection<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, even though the person seems to have fully recovered from the illness.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SSPE has been reported in<\/span><b> all parts of the world<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but <\/span><b>in western countries it is a rare disease.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Males are more often affected <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">than females. The disease <\/span><b>generally occurs in children and adolescents.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SSPE is a<\/span><b> rare condition<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It occurs in about <\/span><b>1 per 50,000 cases of natural measles.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis <\/b><b>Cause<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Normally<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the <\/span><b>measles <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">virus <\/span><b>does not cause brain damage.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>However<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an <\/span><b>abnormal immune response to measles <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">or, possibly, certain variant forms of the virus may cause<\/span><b> severe illness and death.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This response <\/span><b>leads to brain inflammation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (swelling and irritation) that may l<\/span><b>ast for years.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis <\/b><b>Symptoms<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>first symptom<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s of SSPE may be <\/span><b>poor performance in schoolwork, forgetfulness, temper outbursts<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, distractibility, <\/span><b>sleeplessness<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><b>hallucinations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Sudden muscular jerks <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the arms, head, or body may occur.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Eventually<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>seizures<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> may occur, together with <\/span><b>abnormal uncontrollable muscle movements. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Intellect and speech continue to deteriorate.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Later<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the <\/span><b>muscles become increasingly rigid, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>swallowing <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">may become <\/span><b>difficult<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The swallowing difficulty sometimes <\/span><b>causes people to choke on their saliva,<\/b> <b>resulting in pneumonia<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><b>People may become blind.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>In the final phases,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>body temperature may rise<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the <\/span><b>blood pressure <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>pulse become abnormal.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis <\/b><b>Treatment<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>High mortality rates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are associated with SSPE, and there is <\/span><b>no cure<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for SSPE.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Treatment <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is generally aimed at <\/span><b>regulating symptoms.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Certain antiviral medicines<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and medicines that <\/span><b>boost the immune system<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> may be tried to slow the progression of the disease.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/cities\/mumbai-news\/yet-to-frame-a-policy-on-sspe-a-rare-disease-state-tells-hc-101776365970401-amp.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">HT<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a progressive, disabling, and deadly brain disorder related to measles (rubeola) infection. Read more about Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis, Causes, Symptoms, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6916],"class_list":{"0":"post-31303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-subacute-sclerosing-panencephalitis-sspe","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31303"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98797,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31303\/revisions\/98797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}