Epidemiology of measles outbreaks in Qatar in 2007

While a major reduction in morbidity and mortality from measles has been achieved in Qatar since it adopted the measles elimination programme in 1997, the country has experienced small, recurrent measles outbreaks. The aim of this study was to determine the demographical and epidemiological characteristics of measles cases reported to the surveillance programme in Qatar in 2007. Of 362 confirmed cases 67.7% were among children aged 1-14 years old and 16.9% were > 15 years. A majority of cases were unvaccinated (35.9%) or had unknown or undocumented vaccination status (47.0%). The high proportion of cases were among Pakistani nationals (39.5%) followed by Qataris (27.6%). Measles outbreaks were concentrated among the children of expatriates of Asian ethnicity with unknown vaccination status. This highlights the importance of achieving uniformly high levels of vaccination coverage in a community.