Measles vaccination of special risk groups

ABSTRACT

Measles is an important vaccine preventable disease with significant morbidity and mortality. Although measles vaccine is a safe and effective vaccine available worldwide for more than 50 years, still immunization efforts have not successfully reached the WHO goal of 95% vaccination coverage. Hesitancy is especially increased amongst parents of children with chronic conditions. Contraindications for measles-containing vaccines are well defined and include history of anaphylactic reactions to neomycin, history of severe allergic reaction to previous vaccination, pregnancy, and severe immunosuppression. Concurrently, precautions for measles-containing vaccines include amongst other, history of thrombocytopenia or thrombocytopenic purpura and personal or family history of seizures of any etiology. This article aims to address misconceptions on measles vaccine safety and review data on adverse events among special groups of subjects at increased risk following measles immunization.

KEYWORDS:

• Measles
• immunization
• contraindications
• precautions
• misconceptions
• immunosuppression
• seizures
• allergies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.