The status of measles after five years of mass vaccination in the USSR

Mass vaccination of children from 10 months to 8 years old with the original live vaccine prepared from the Leningrad-16 strain has led to a sharp decline in measles morbidity and mortality, and changed its epidemic pattern. In 1972, after 5 years of mass vaccination, the morbidity rate was 117.5 per 100 000 persons, whereas before vaccination the average annual morbidity rate was about 827.0. The periodicity of increases in morbidity every 3 years was also broken, the last peak of measles morbidity occurring in 1965. Another result of vaccination is that the formerly much higher morbidity rate in urban areas is now lower than that in rural areas. The mortality rate decreased more than 3-fold compared with the period before vaccination, and recently no deaths were registered in a number of regions. The serologic examination of 7 585 vaccinated children from 10 different regions revealed antibodies with a mean geometric titre of 78.6+/-1.16 in 90% of individuals. The high antibody level was maintained for 7 years after vaccination. The effect of vaccination is both epidemiological and economical. The saving in the use of gamma-globulin alone covered the cost of the vaccine and the expenses involved during vaccination.