Iraq's Ministry of Health is organizing the MMR campaign as part of Iraq's long-term Measles Elimination Plan, with support from UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) and invaluable financing from the European Commission.
We called the children in groups B and C for an additional visit at 18 months and randomised them to an additional dose of the same strain of measles vaccine or no additional dose to examine whether the additional dose had an effect on the long term maintenance of measles antibody concentrations.
The latter should be underscored, since long term sequelae of measles encephalitis are reported to occur in 20 30% of cases [ 29, 30]; this implies that between 28 to 41 of the 138 encephalitis cases may have subsequently developed permanent disabilities.
When a strong effect of measles vaccine on childhood survival was reported in observational studies and community intervention trials in the 1980s and 1990s, this was assumed to be due to selection bias or the fact that measles vaccine prevented not only mortality from acute measles but also the long term negative consequences of measles infection.
By censoring all cases of measles at the time of measles infection, we excluded from the comparison not only deaths from acute measles but also potential long term excess mortality after measles infection.
We are currently in add-on studies assessing the cytokine response after early measles vaccination and the response to a booster vaccination at 3 years of age to predict the likely long term efficacy of early measles vaccination.
9 45 We subsequently found that measles had no long term negative consequences in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Bangladesh.
Numerous studies of measles vaccine have reported significant reductions in all cause mortality that could not be explained by the prevention of acute measles or its long term consequences.
"However success also requires more resources, and a long term commitment of leaders to permanently reducing measles deaths".
Can vaccines in children with mitochondrial dysfunction cause significant "neurological deterioration?" Can the combination live-virus measles, mumps and rubella vaccine cause seizures and long term damage in children?
"Think long term," he said.
