Measles Immunity Among Pregnant Women Aged 15-44 years in Namibia 2008 & 2010.

Tuesday, 7th of June 2016

Int J Infect Dis. 2016 May 24. pii: S1201-9712(16)31063-3. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2016.05.020. [Epub ahead of print]

Measles Immunity Among Pregnant Women Aged 15-44 years in Namibia 2008 & 2010.

Cardemil CV¹ Jonas A² Beukes A³ Anderson R⁴ Rota PA⁴ Bankamp B⁴ Jr HE² Sawadogo S³ Patel SV³ Zeko S² Muroua C² Gaeb E⁵ Wannemuehler K⁶ Gerber S³ Goodson JL⁶.

Author information

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Namibia experienced a large measles outbreak starting in 2009 with 38% of reported cases in adults including women of reproductive age. We assessed population immunity among pregnant women to determine if immunization activities were needed in adults to achieve measles elimination in Namibia.

METHODS:

We tested 1708 and 2040 specimens for measles immunoglobulin G antibody from Namibian pregnant women aged 15-44 years sampled from the 2008 and 2010 National HIV Sentinel Survey respectively. We determined the proportion of women seropositive overall and by 5-year age strata and analyzed factors associated with seropositivity by logistic regression including age facility type gravidity HIV status and urban/rural status. We tested for any difference in seropositivity between 2008 and 2010.

RESULTS:

In both analysis years measles seropositivity was lower in 15-19 year olds (77%) and 20-24 year olds (85-87%) and higher in 25-44 year olds (90%-94%) (p<0.001 2008 p<0.001 2010). Overall measles seropositivity did not differ between 2008 (87%) and 2010 (87%) (p=0.7). HIV status did not affect seropositivity.

CONCLUSIONS:

Late in a large measles outbreak 13% of pregnant women in Namibia and almost one in four 15-19-year-old pregnant women remained measles-susceptible. In Namibia immunization campaigns with measles-containing vaccine should be considered for adults.

Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.