Measles and rubella seroprevalence in a population of young adult blood donors, France 2013

Abstract

As part of the evaluation of the French plan for the elimination of measles and rubella, we conducted a seroprevalence survey in 2013, aimed at updating seroprevalence data for people 18–32 years old. A secondary objective was to estimate measles incidence in this population during the 2009–2011 outbreak, and thus estimate the exhaustiveness of measles mandatory reporting. We used a cross-sectional survey design, targeting blood donors 18–32 years old, living in France since 2009, who came to give blood in a blood collecting site. We included 4647 people in metropolitan France, 806 people in Réunion Island and 496 in the French Caribbean. A further 3942 individuals were interviewed in the south-east region of metropolitan France to estimate the exhaustiveness of measles mandatory reporting. One of the main findings of this survey is that the proportion of people 18–32 years old susceptible to both measles and rubella infections remained high in France in 2013, 9.2% and 5.4%, respectively, in metropolitan France, even after the promotion campaigns about vaccination catch-up during and following the major measles epidemic in 2009–2011. Applying our results to French census data would suggest that around 1 million people aged 18–32 years old are currently susceptible to measles in France, despite this age group being one of the vaccination targets of the national measles elimination plan. Another important finding is that only an estimated 45% of the true number of cases in this age group was actually notified, despite notification being mandatory.

Epidemiology of measles during the COVID-19 pandemic, a description of the surveillance data, 29 EU/EEA countries and the United Kingdom, January to May 2020

“…Third, in the pre-pandemic era and in some settings, the incidence of measles has been described as being underestimated because of under-reporting [19] even when notification was mandatory [20]. The pandemic may have worsened under-reporting.…”

Risk of Absence of Measles Antibody in Healthcare Personnel and Efficacy of Booster Vaccination

“…Differences in seropositivity between males and females also support our hypothesis. In studies conducted in other countries, there was no difference in the measles seroprevalence according to sex [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. However, in our study, m-IgG seropositive rate in males was higher than that of females.…”

Measles seroprevalence in human immunodeficiency virus-infected adults born in the era of measles vaccination

“…In this cross-sectional study of a large group of PLWH, measles seroprevalence was 87.2% (95% CI, 84.6–89.9), well below the public health goal of 95% needed to achieve herd immunity [3]. This rate is also lower than the result of a national seroprevalence survey conducted in 2013 among blood donors born between 1980 and 1995, when most European countries, including France, had just experienced 3 years of major measles epidemics [19]. In this survey, measles seroprevalence was 90.8% (95% CI, 89–92.1), whereas, in our study, the measles seroprevalence of PLWH born in France between 1980 and 1995 was 81.1% (95% CI, 76.3–85.8) (data not shown).…”