Measles elimination: old and new challenges?

[ema-adama]

While secondary vaccine failure may be responsible for disease in some seroconverted individuals, evidence suggests that many more vaccinees who are protected against disease may not be fully protected against virus infection.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...c64526d292fe08

Wow. That made me sit up. I would love to know more. Does anyone have an relevant links?

[nicolebeth]

These observations suggest that elimination may be more easily achieved as long as large proportions of populations are protected by wild-type virus-induced immunity.

I thought this bit was very interesting. Perhaps there's already another thread on this? This suggests to me that many people need to have had the actual measles in order to eliminate measles. Which doesn't make sense because at some point, we would always reach were we are now (or, where we were when this article was written): a place where there are no natural maternal antibodies being passed to children, and where most of the immunity is through vaccination.

Would they be suggesting that only certain persons should be vaccinated? Because the only way to have protection by "wild-type virus-induced immunity" is to have people actually getting wild measles.

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by nicolebeth

I thought this bit was very interesting. Perhaps there's already another thread on this? This suggests to me that many people need to have had the actual measles in order to eliminate measles. Which doesn't make sense because at some point, we would always reach were we are now (or, where we were when this article was written): a place where there are no natural maternal antibodies being passed to children, and where most of the immunity is through vaccination.

These were pretty much my thoughts... it didn't make sense.

Would they be suggesting that only certain persons should be vaccinated? Because the only way to have protection by "wild-type virus-induced immunity" is to have people actually getting wild measles.

Yes. It was not clear. I did not see any suggestions, not having read the whole article.

I did find it interesting that the virus can circulate in a vaccinated population.