{"id":115,"date":"2010-11-01T16:30:36","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T00:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/?p=115"},"modified":"2010-11-01T16:33:37","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T00:33:37","slug":"measles-vaccination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/2010\/11\/01\/measles-vaccination\/","title":{"rendered":"Measles Vaccination"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I want to share this\u00a0advertisement<\/a> by the “Measles Initiative”, which focuses on vaccinating people against the virus, measles. I\u00a0was shown this video\u00a0at the very beginning of\u00a0my Virology class last Friday (once in the link,\u00a0watch “The Last Measles” video) and somewhat surprisingly, some marketing ideas popped into my mind.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just some background information on measles. Measles is an infection caused by the Rhabdo family of viruses. It is easily spread by aerosol (coughing\/sneezing) transmission and through direct and indirect contact (e.g. touching a doorknob with the virus). When infected, it causes the archetypal symptoms of an infection – fever, headache, cough but it also causes a nasty skin rash that usually commences in the neck region (I would include picture of this but the photos\u00a0may be a bit too graphic for some).\u00a0For most patients, these are the only symptoms but for\u00a0about 20-30%, secondary infections such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, blindness and\u00a0encephalitis (inflammation of the brain)\u00a0occurs due to the\u00a0suppression of the immune system by the measles virus (specifically, much like the HIV virus, measles\u00a0inactivates the T cells, which is critical immune defence mechanism against viruses). It is because of these secondary complications\u00a0that death usually ensues, especially amongst children living in developing nations\u00a0as they are usually living in poverty, are malnourished and have\u00a0little access to the\u00a0scarce medical facilities.\u00a0 In developed nations, these patients usually survive because of hospitalisation. In very rare cases,\u00a0the measles virus can\u00a0enter the central nervous system causing Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), which has a 100% mortality rate. Currently, 450 people die\u00a0each day from measles-related complications. The risk of this also exists in developed nations – in fact,\u00a014 unvaccinated people in the Vancouver area were infected<\/a> with measles earlier this year.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, so how does this have to relate to marketing, you may ask? Well, in my opinion, it\u00a0most certainly relates to marketing. Marketing is necessary to convey the message of the measles problem and the solutions to it, which is what the advertisement above was aiming to do. Through the narration of a young measles survivor from Africa, we gain a first-hand experience of the heartache, pain, terror\u00a0and fear the measles virus\u00a0sparked in his family, school and village. He informs the audience of the “miracle” – the vaccine which eliminated the virus in his village but fears for nearby towns that have not received the vaccine. The advertisement concludes with statistics and how we can help by donating money so that vaccinations can continue. Without such advertisements, people would not be aware of the measles problem and would not be aware of the contributions which they can make to solve this problem.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was\u00a0emotionally appealed (pathos)\u00a0by the advertisement. It generated\u00a0fear, worry and sadness for these communities. Certainly, the sombre tone of the advertisement was augmented by the narrator’s innonence, and\u00a0the\u00a0black and white colour tones, which contrasted with the red spots, symbolic of the measles virus. Personally, for me, I perceived the\u00a0red spots as danger and so I believed that this was a good technique. All of these features really\u00a0generated interest in me\u00a0and helped capture the\u00a0audience’s attention such that Measles Initiative’s message could be conveyed. Subsequently, I gained a desire to donate to the foundation and I plan to take action within the next few days. In fact, the whole class was moved by the advertisement because\u00a0the\u00a0lecture hall\u00a0suddenly fell silent upon hearing the first few seconds of the advertisement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I hope that\u00a0the advertisement has also made its mark on you and has expanded your understanding\u00a0of\u00a0the dangers of some viruses, which we may personally never see in our lives, but are rife amongst unvaccinated populations. I hope that it is not too much longer before measles (and polio) becomes eradicated in the same way smallpox has, made possible\u00a0after the introduction of the Salk and Sabin vaccines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I want to share this\u00a0advertisement by the “Measles Initiative”, which focuses on vaccinating people against the virus, measles. I\u00a0was shown this video\u00a0at the very beginning of\u00a0my Virology class last Friday (once in the link,\u00a0watch “The Last Measles” video) and somewhat surprisingly, some marketing ideas popped into my mind. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just some background information on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3746,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/eugenesanchan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}