Measles confirmation and seroprevalence | Céline Langendorf & Birgit Nikolay

Measles confirmation and seroprevalence: addressing the challenges of sample collection and laboratory procedures


While case confirmation is most of the time not necessary for case management decisions – the measles outbreak response relies on the timely biological confirmation of outbreaks to facilitate a vaccination response. Seroprevalence estimates, on the other hand, can help plan vaccination activities or evaluate them, by quantifying immunization levels in the population. In remote areas where transport of serum or plasma samples is challenging, we ideally would like to use dried blood spots (DBS) which are easy to collect, easy to transport, and theoretically stable in time and temperature. However, the practical use of DBS under field conditions is not as easy as we expect.
Based on different examples of measles surveys in the DRC and Niger, This presentation describes the challenges we are facing regarding interpretation of serology results from DBS for both measles biological confirmation and seroprevalence surveys.