Laboratory confirmation of rubella infection in suspected measles cases.

Monday, 4th of April 2016

J Med Virol. 2016 Mar 27. doi: 10.1002/jmv.24535. [Epub ahead of print]

Laboratory confirmation of rubella infection in suspected measles cases.

Vaidya SR¹ Raut CG² Jadhav SM¹.

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Abstract

As a part of measles outbreak based surveillance undertaken by the World Health Organization India suspected measles cases were referred for the laboratory diagnosis at National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune and NIV Unit Bengaluru. Altogether 4592 serum samples were referred during 2010-2015 from the States of Karnataka (n = 1173) Kerala (n = 559) and Maharashtra (n = 2860). Initially serum samples were tested in measles IgM antibody EIA and samples with measles negative and equivocal results (n = 1954) were subjected to rubella IgM antibody detection. Overall 62.9% (2889/4592) samples were laboratory confirmed measles 27.7% (542/1954) were laboratory confirmed rubella and remaining 25.2% (1161/4592) were negative for measles and rubella. The measles vaccination status was available for 1206 cases. Amongst the vaccinated individuals 50.7% (612/1206) were laboratory confirmed measles. The contribution of laboratory confirmed measles was 493 (40.8%) from Maharashtra 90 (7.5%) from Karnataka and 29 (2.4%) from Kerala. Since 1/3^rd of suspected measles cases were laboratory confirmed rubella an urgent attention needed to build rubella surveillance in India. Additional efforts are required to rule out other exanthematous disease including Dengue and Chikungunya in measles and rubella negatives. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.