Reporting Requirements

Diagnosis is usually made clinically, as viral isolation is difficult and there is a paucity of the immune response. All other possible etiologies of encephalitis should be ruled out. May be diagnosed by the demonstration of high measles titres in serum and CSF in the presence of a compatible illness, also role of brain biopsy (characteristic histopathology), EEG (characteristic pattern), and possibly PCR/molecular diagnostic techniques (and prior measles information in these individuals usually remarkable only for early age of occurrence prior to 2 years of age). NOTE: SSPE is chronic encephalitis after measles in normal hosts. It is rare, developing in about 1/100,000 hosts several years after infection, and covers a wide spectrum of severity