Molecular Epidemiological Study of Measles Cases in Gyeonggi Province

Abstract

Measles is one of the highly contagious infectious diseases in which about 90% of the groups that have no immunity against measles are infected when exposed to the measles virus. Even after the Republic of Korea was certified as a ‘national measles eradication’ by the WHO in March 2014, two import-related outbreaks of measles occurred in 2014 and 2019. In this study, we analyzed epidemiological characteristics and genetic distribution of measles cases. Ninety-eight nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab samples that confirmed cases of measles in Gyeonggi province in 2019 were conducted genotyping assay and sequence analysis. Fifty cases were classified as group outbreak-related cases and Forty-eight cases were classified as sporadic cases. As a result of genetic analysis, these cases were classified into D8, B3, and A genotypes, and except for the A type which was known as the vaccine type, D8 and B3 types were identified as import-related measles viruses. As with these results, for the complete eradication of measles, not only a high-quality surveillance system but also molecular epidemiological analysis data must be supported. The results of this study are expected to be used as important data for establishing a quarantine system through the accumulation of measles virus genotyping data and case reports data in the future when measles occurs in South Korea.