J Korean Pediatr Soc.  1996 Dec;39(12):1700-1706.

Reappraisal of the Efficacy of Measles Vaccination

• Cho SH
• Ju HG
• Cho CH
• Choi YY
• Ma JS
• Hwang TJ

Abstract

PURPOSE
Measles is one of the most highly communicable infectious disease, but has become a rare disease with the widespread use of vaccine. Recently, however, resurgence of the disease in school aged or adolescents who had received the vaccine before or at the 15 month warrants reappraisal of the efficacy of the vaccination. The purpose of this study was to investigate positive prevalence of antibody and its quantitative titers in different age groups in order to determine necessity and appropriate time of booster vaccine.
METHODS
We measured measles antibody in the sera of 192 children from different age groups(61 cases from 4-6 years of age, 40 cases from 8-9 years of age, 47 cases from 12-13 years of age, 44 cases from 15-16 years of age). Eight to ten children from each group were selected and quantitative antibody titers were measured by EIA(measles Ig G EIA SEIKEN) method.
RESULTS
1) The positive prevalence of measles antibody in four to six year age group(72%) was significantly lower than the expected positive prevalence of measles antibody(95%) (p<0.001). 2) Median antibody titer in twelve to thirteen year age group tended to be relatively lower than the other age groups. 3) There was no significant differences in the positive prevalence of measles antibody and median titers between sex.
CONCLUSIONS
This data supported that the booster vaccination be needed at four to six years of age.

Keyword

Measles antibody; Efficacy; Booster

MeSH Terms

Adolescent
Child
Communicable Diseases
Humans
Measles*
Prevalence
Rare Diseases
Vaccination*