Chinese Mothers May Need Measles Vaccine Boost

Limited vaccination programs during the 1980s may have resulted in some Chinese women not having adequate protection against measles.

When these women became pregnant, their newborns were not initially protected from measles.

According to a new study, Chinese mothers with a known history of measles provided 1.6 times higher concentrations of antibodies in the blood to their infants, compared with those mothers who had no known history with measles, or the measles vaccination.

Additionally, the level of protective antibodies has been found to decrease as these Chinese infants reached 3 months of age.

This means, mothers in China may not be passing on protective measles antibodies to their infants.

This study indicates the mother-to-infant protection process is leaving children in China under 8 months vulnerable to the measles disease, report researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M).

Matthew Boulton, MD, senior associate dean for global public health at the U-M School of Public Health, said “the team's results show current vaccination programs in China are not effective in controlling transmission of measles to infants.”

These U-M researchers suggest either the infants or their mothers may need additional protection.

"Effectively controlling measles in China and globally will require that we achieve and maintain very high levels of vaccination among children,’ said Dr. Bouton.

“This requires the adoption of new strategies that likely involve immunization of young adult populations who remain susceptible to disease," Dr. Boulton said.

Previous research has shown that when a pregnancy goes full term and the mother has adequate nutrition, she will typically pass on antibody protection to the fetus if she has been immunized or has had a case of the measles.

Over two-thirds of mothers who were immune to measles were unsure if they had been vaccinated or had the disease.

"China has been very successful at immunizing eligible children for measles and for carrying out very large Special Immunization Activities, which have resulted in literally millions of children being vaccinated for measles in a short period of time," Dr. Boulton said.

Dr. Boulton said “immunizing mothers might be the best option to protect infants”.

​"With this approach, not only would we be directly preventing mothers from acquiring measles but we would also be preventing measles transmission from these young mothers to their infants while also improving the likelihood that the mother would pass on protective levels of measles antibodies to any future children she might have," he said.

"Additionally, that would be important to passing on protective antibodies to the infant in the first several months of life."

Measles remains a common disease in many parts of the world.  Worldwide, 36 cases of measles per 1 million persons are reported each year, and about 134,200 die.

Measles is a disease caused by a virus that is spread through the air by breathing, coughing, or sneezing. Measles virus is highly contagious and can remain so for up to 2 hours in the air or on surfaces.

In the USA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that anyone who isn’t protected against measles, either through vaccination or past infection, should get vaccinated.

The CDC recommends one dose of measles vaccine for infants aged 6–11 months and two doses for children aged 1 year or older.

Merck is the manufacturer of two measles vaccinations, the MMR and ProQuad vaccines. Both contain the protection for measles, as well as protection for mumps and rubella.

The CDC Vaccine Price List provides the private sector vaccine prices for general information.

Most pharmacies offer measles vaccines, and vaccine discounts can be found at this webpage.

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Division of Microbial and Infectious Diseases.

These researchers did not disclose conflicts of interest: Matthew L Boulton  Xiexiu Wang  Abram L Wagner  Ying Zhang  Bradley F Carlson Brenda W Gillespie  Yaxing Ding.