Post-Ebola Measles Outbreak in Lola, Guinea, January–June 20151

Abstract

During public health crises such as the recent outbreaks of Ebola virus disease in West Africa, breakdowns in public health systems can lead to epidemics of vaccine-preventable diseases. We report here on an outbreak of measles in the prefecture of Lola, Guinea, which started in January 2015.

Increase in acute malnutrition in children following the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in rural Sierra Leone

“…Finally, the risk of malnutrition rose with the lack of early facility-based access to under-five services, including immunisation, leading to an increased risk of preventable childhood illness, particularly measles. 20 Our findings suggest an unmet need in reducing the prevalence of malnutrition, with limited access to, and/or uptake of, appropriate management and therapeutic feeding. The low level of SAM treatment completion suggests a pre-existing health system gap that remained stable during the outbreak but worsened post-outbreak for STP and improved for OTP.…”

Influence of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak on the vaccination of children in a rural district of Guinea

“…This might also have led to a relative increase in demand for oral polio vaccines which, when combined with stock-outs due to compromised distribution logistics during the outbreak, might have aggravated the situation. 22 Furthermore, a striking decline in polio vaccine administration was noted 2 months prior to the stock-outs. This might have been associated with community or facility-based factors, such as redeployment of health staff to Ebola response activities.…”

Immunological cross-reactions with paramyxovirus nucleoproteins may explain sporadic apparent ebolavirus seropositivity in European populations

“…It is known that infection with live measles morbillivirus in non-immune individuals elicits a stronger antibody response than those receiving the attenuated strain in the MMR vaccine 43 . In Africa, measles outbreaks are still common, especially when vaccination programmes fail due to civil conflict or overstretching of medical systems during other epidemics, as happened in the aftermath of the EVD outbreak in west Africa 44–46 . However in England, confirmed cases of measles are only in the order of several hundred per year with two-thirds of cases in the over 15 age group 47 , so recent live measles infection cannot account for the 2% seropositivity to EBOV nucleoprotein observed here.…”