Abstract
Due to the European measles epidemic and the increased number of imported cases, it can be theorised that the risk of exposure among Hungarian healthcare workers (HCWs) has increased. In 2017, the increased measles circulation in the region led to the emergence of smaller local and hospital epidemics. Therefore, our objective was to determine the herd immunity in the high-risk group of HCWs. A hospital-based study of detecting anti-measles IgG activity was performed in 2017 and included 2167 employees of the Military Medical Centre (Hungary). The screening of HCWs presented a good general seropositivity (90.6%). The highest seroprevalence value (99.1%) was found in the age group of 60 years or older. The lowest number of seropositive individuals was seen in the 41-45 years (86.2%) age group, indicating a significant herd immunity gap between groups. Regarding the Hungarian data, there might be gaps in the seroprevalence of the analysed HCWs, implying that susceptible HCWs may generate healthcare-associated infections. This study suggests that despite the extensive vaccination and high vaccine coverage, it is still important to monitor the level of protective antibodies in HCWs, or in a representative group of the whole population of Hungary, and possibly in other countries as well.
Highlights
Despite the long-term and wide range measles eradication programme, there is still an ongoing epidemic in Europe
Such outbreaks have affected unvaccinated people, but they occurred in Hungarian healthcare workers (HCWs) in Makó, between those who had been previously vaccinated against measles [8]
We aimed to investigate the level of antimeasles IgG antibodies in HCWs in our institute to estimate the herd immunity and the risk of infection in this group
Summary
Despite the long-term and wide range measles eradication programme, there is still an ongoing epidemic in Europe. Since several susceptible HCWs have been infected despite of the proper protective measures (hand sanitation, surgical masks, protective gloves), introduction of vaccination among these employees has become the only effective way of preventing healthcare-associated spread [2,3,4,5]. Measles virus infection causes life-long protective immunity, and vaccination with two doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) should give sufficient protection as well [6]. Measles is an extremely contagious airborne virus with an estimated basic reproduction number (R0) of 12–18 [7]. This determines the herd immunity threshold, and the vaccination coverage required to achieve elimination [8].
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