Measles Antibody Prevalence in Diverse Populations

The reports from the various countries represented at this conference have demonstrated once again that measles is an almost ubiquitous disease. Only the most isolated areas are spared at all, and they have, at best, a precarious refuge in their isolation. Estimates of measles attack rates may be formulated from public health reports, but these are almost always grossly incomplete. The reports seem to indicate differences in the epidemiology of measles from one country to another, but their significance is difficult to evaluate. The development of methods for measuring measles antibodies has provided tools that yield much more accurate and standardized estimates of measles attack rates than have been available heretofore. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of the serological methods and to show that marked differences in the epidemiological patterns of measles do in fact exist.

Methods  Four distinct serological tests may be used for