[Characteristics of measles epidemics in the Donetsk region population under conditions of regular immunization]. / Osobennosti épidemicheskogo protsessa kori u zhitelei Donetskoi oblasti v usloviiakh mnogoletnei planovoi immunizatsii.

With vaccination having become usual practice in health care, the incidence rate of measles in the Donetsk region has fallen 53.6-fold versus the prevaccination period. Bet there are also negative processes in the epidemiology of measles; of these, ever more frequent occurrence of the infection under consideration in persons of mature years is worthy of particular mention. The specific weight of juveniles and grown ups had come to be 68.65% in 1998 vs 6.3% in 1975. Since 1993 the case rate of measles is noted to be at its greatest among children less than two years of age and among adolescents, which fact can be referred to effects on the level of immunity of different factors including that of time of more than five years having elapsed since the previous immunization. The administration in 1997-1998 of vaccines to non-vaccinated persons and to unprotected ones permitted the incidence rate of measles to be kept down in juveniles and adults but the age brackets of sick persons were in fact the same as before the additional vaccinations done. The state of things discribed above attests to the need for development of cardinal measures to raise the level of individual and collective immunity in juveniles and adults.