by Dr Steve McCabe
Measles has been described by one author as “an inevitable infection during human development with a substantial degree of morbidity and mortality”.
It is caused by a virus, the Morbilla virus (hence the old name for measles, morbilla). The origin of the virus in humans remains unclear but it seems likely that it evolved from a cattle virus in Africa about 2000 years ago and now humans are the only host for the virus.