Prevalence of rubella antibodies in a non-immunized urban population, São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

The prevalence of rubella antibodies was evaluated through a ramdom Seroepidemiological survey in 1400 blood samples of 2-14 year old children and in 329 samples of umbilical cord serum. Rubella IgG antibodies were detected by ELISA, and the sera were collected in 1987, five years before the mass vaccination campaign with measles-mumps-rubella vaccine carried out in the city of São Paulo in 1992. A significant increase in prevalence of rubella infection was observed after 6 years of age, and 77% of the individuals aged from 15 to 19 years had detectable rubella antibodies. However, the seroprevalence rose to 90.5% (171/189) in cord serum samples from children whose mothers were 20 to 29 years old, and reached 95.6% in newborns of mothers who were 30 to 34 years old, indicating that a large number of women are infected during childbearing years. This study confirms that rubella infection represents an important Public Health problem in São Paulo city. The data on the seroprevalence of rubella antibodies before the mass vaccination campaign reflects the baseline immunological status of this population before any intervention and should be used to design an adequate vaccination strategy and to assess the Seroepidemiological impact of this intervention.

Relationship among epidemiological parameters of six childhood infections in a non-immunized Brazilian community

“…The rubella seroprevalence described here for Caieiras is similar to data published by Souza et al (1994) for the city of São Paulo from a survey carried out on sera collected in 1987, which suggests that the Caieiras population is representative of the São Paulo metropolitan region population.…”

Prevalence of antibodies against measles, mumps, and rubella before and after vaccination of school-age children with three different triple combined viral vaccines, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 1996

“…For rubella, the overall rate of seropositivity was 55.4% (95% CI = 51.6%-59.2%) ( Table 4). A seroepidemiological study by Souza et al (21) involved 1 400 sera from a nonimmunized population of children in São Paulo between 2 and 14 years of age, and 329 sera from umbilical cord blood, and yielded the following results: at 6 years of age, 55.9% of the sera were positive; at 8 years, 57.6% were positive; at 10 years, 76.2% were positive; and at 14 years, 80.2% of the sera were positive. A 95% seropositivity rate was found in the umbilical cord blood of mothers between the ages of 20 and 29 years.…”

Systematic Review of Measles and Rubella Serology Studies

“…We identified over 220 studies that provided cross‐sectional data and nearly 180 studies that reported on immunity for women of child‐bearing age, primarily for rubella. Table summarizes the over 400 cross‐sectional and women of child‐bearing age measles and rubella serological studies…”