Double outbreak of measles in the talaja block of bhavnagar district, gujarat, India 2011: a need for improving the vaccine coverage and the community participation.
BACKGROUND
Two outbreaks of measles were reported from an urban and a village area of Bhavnagar District, Gujarat, India in January and March 2011 respectively.


OBJECTIVE
The present study was conducted to investigate and to assess various epidemiological features which were associated with the measles outbreak.


METHODS
The present study was designed as a cross sectional study, which was conducted in an urban and a rural area of the Talaja block of the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat, India from December 2010 to April 2011.


METHODS
The suspected cases were detected through an active case finding in the community. We defined a case clinically by the WHO criteria as the occurrence of a febrile rash with or without cough, coryza and conjunctivitis in a resident of the Talaja-urban and the Gorkhi village of the Talaja block, in the period from 1(st) December 2010 to 30(th) April 2011. Blood samples from 10 case patients were collected for the IgM antibody detection. A community based, retrospective, cohort design was carried out to find the vaccine efficacy in the Gorkhi village.


METHODS
We entered and analyzed the data by using an MS-Excel sheet.


RESULTS
This study identified 27 confirmed cases of measles in the urban area of Talaja and 78 cases in Gorkhi village. All the 105 case patients belonged to the age group of 3 months-15 years. According to their mothers' statements, out of the 105 measles cases in the two areas, 40 (38%) case patients were immunized. Ten sera from five case-patients each from both the areas were tested; all were found to be positive for the IgM/IgG antibodies by ELISA.


CONCLUSIONS
The outbreaks occurred due to a poor community participation and the poor vaccine coverage levels.
Epidemiologist, Integrated Disease Surveillance Project ,  Gujarat, India.
Pankhuri P
PP
Mishra
Naresh T
NT
Chauhan
Bhavnagar; Measles; Measles outbreak; Measles vaccination