Topical issues of vaccination and epidemiological surveillance over measles and rubella in Ukraine.

Abstract

The analysis of measles and rubella morbidity, the state of their vaccination in Ukraine was carried out. Despite decades of preventive vaccination, there is a 5-6 years’ cyclicity of measles epidemic process at present time. Measles morbidity increased 46.8 times in 2017 in comparison with 2016. Elevated rates of rubella epidemic morbidity were registered in 2004 and 2011. There was decrease of routine measles and rubella immunization coverage in the period from 2009 to 2016. Critically low rates were noted in 2016 – 45.5% (vaccination) and 30.2% (revaccination). In spite of progress in the measles and rubella vaccination in 2017 (93.3% – vaccination and 90.7% – revaccination), Ukraine has not achieved the immunization coverage (≥95.0%) necessary to interrupt these pathogens circulation. The national laboratory and a network of regional ones, in-system of the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network, were established in Ukraine to ensure high-quality performance of epidemiological surveillance. Genotyping of the clinical samples from Ukrainian measles and rubella patients is carried out in the WHO Regional Reference Laboratory (Luxembourg). Different genetic lines of the measles virus with prevalence of D8 genotype were indicated to circulate in Ukraine. The genotype B3 was also identified and the genotype D9 was isolated for the first time. In the furtherance of the goal of rubella and measles elimination in Ukraine, standard international approaches to clinical, laboratory and epide­miological diagnosis of cases, investigation of viruses transmission chains and detection of endemicity cases are in the course of implementation. Quality of the executing activities is assessed according to relevant standard indicators.