Serum complement concentrations, nutritional status and the outcome of measles and measles pneumonia.

A prospective study of children with measles has shown a significant association between malnutrition and a poor prognosis. Levels of a number of complement components bore no relationship to the severity of the disease or to its prognosis. Some of the children with acute measles had depressed serum concentrations of factor D, Clq or C3, but complement deficiency does not appear to be implicated in the heightened susceptibility to secondary bacterial and viral infection so commonly found after acute measles.