Surveillance of measles antibody levels in infants and their mothers in Nanchang city, Jiangxi province

Objective To understand the measles antibody lrevls in neonates and their mothers as well as the change in measles antibody level in infants during the first 8 months life. Methods Measles antibody IgG levels were detected among neonates and their mothers with enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The geometric mean titer (GMT) 1 ∶ 200 was considered as positive, GNT 1 ∶ 800 was protective. Results The GMTs in umbilical cord blood and maternal blood were similar, which were 1 ∶ 408 and 1 ∶ 483 respectively The maternal antibody positive rate was 85.71% and the neonate antibody positive rate was 77.14%, the difference was without statistically significance (2= 1.70, P0.05). The maternal antibody GMT in infants declined gradually with the increase of age, which declined from 1 ∶ 408 at birth to 1 ∶ 112 at age of 8 months (a level without protective importance). The maternal antibody GMT declined rapidly in infants aged 6-8 months, resulting in a30% protection level. Conclusion It is suggested to conduct measles vaccination for women of childbearing age, increase the timely vaccination rate of the first measles vaccine dose in infants in order to reduce the incidence of measles and achieve the goal of eliminating measles.