Rubella

If contracted after birth: it is usually a mild infection.

It is characterized by:

• Incubation period: 2-3 weeks. Generally asymptomatic.
• Prodromal period: 1-7 days. Slight catarrhal symptoms, feverish, which may go unnoticed. Ganglion inflammation: retroauricular, suboccipital.
• Exanthematical period: 3 days. Macules-Papules (similar to measles but milder) that start in the face and then spread to the rest of the body.
• Ganglion swelling follows, which can be painful.
• Flaking period: Very mild or none at all.
• If contracted in the embryo or fetus (congenital rubella): the virus affects more frequently and more severely the fewer weeks of pregnancy the infected woman has, producing:

Chronic infection of the fetus (evolutionary rubella): with the persistence of the virus in its various tissues until many months after birth, giving rise to various symptoms such as: thrombocytopenia, meinigoencephalitis, myocarditis, pneumonia, diabetes, etc.

Congenital defects or malformations: mainly cardiac and ocular alterations, deafness, alterations of the nervous system... and/or miscarriages.

The most common symptoms are:

• Catarrhal symptoms.
• Ganglion inflammation.
• Macules-papules.
• Scaling.

Not every time a pregnant woman gets infected her child will have congenital rubella.

Abnormalities are rare if the infection occurs after the 20th week of pregnancy.

Complications that may occur are very rare: encephalitis, arthritis or arthralgia, bleeding, etc.