Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that can lead to serious complications and even death. Lack of awareness and lack of interest in vaccinations are risk factors that may cause the outbreaks. We investigated a measles outbreak in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, between October 5, 2017 to March 5, 2018. We sought to describe the scope of the outbreak and identify possible risk factors.
Methodology
We conducted a case control study. We defined cases as any measles case laboratory confirmed by positive ELISA IgM test. Control are randomly selected from those tested negative and matched by neighborhood. We used surveillance data from the measles program for Jeddah region and directly interviewed cases or parents of cases using the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health measles questionnaire. Variables included demographics, vaccination history, contact history and clinical data. We used SPSS ver. 23 for statistical analysis.
Results
A total of 222 participants responded: 111 were cases. Cases were mostly under 1 year of age (31%), and (22%) were 1-5 years. Cases were geographically located in four districts in southern Jeddah represented (38%) of cases that occurred in four adjacent districts. These districts are mostly slums, with lower socioeconomic status residents. We found significant differences regarding immunization status between cases (97% unvaccinated) and controls (35% unvaccinated) (P value< 0.01 , OR=0.015, 95%CI=0.004-0.051).
Conclusion
The main factors detected were unvaccination and living in slums. we recommend further study for false perceptions and beliefs regarding vaccination. Also some districts in south need more efforts to be increase utilization of preventive health services.