[Controlled rubella vaccination at the Stuttgart Public Health Center]

Experience has shown that mass vaccination of pre-puberty girls against rubella (German measles), as recommended in accordance with German legislation and performed by the Public Health authorities, is unnecessary in about three-quarters of all the girls. Besides, only relatively few girls report for such vaccination. It became possible to carry out on-target vaccination by conducting first of all a serological preliminary test with capillary blood. This pin-pointed those pupils who were likely to be susceptible to rubella infection. After the vaccination, this method enabled re-checking by means of a further antibody test. All the pupils who had been successfully vaccinated or were already satisfactorily protected, were issued a certificate to that effect. In our opinion, the increased material and personnel expenditure of such on-target vaccination is justified by the fact that the rate of participation on the part of the pupils is markedly higher, so that vaccination becomes more meaningful than before.