Measles

Promoting measles testing and immunisation for adults.

The Measles program available in DCP is collaboration between DCP and Adelaide university and hopes to bring to light opportunities to assess and promote measles immunity via testing and immunisation withing general practice.

Lets review the measles vaccination timeline. In 1969 Measles vaccine was introduced. Then in 1983 - Measles–mumps vaccine introduced Then in 1989 - Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine introduced And in 1994 MMR vaccine introduced for males and females in Year 6 of primary school

These dates are valid for Victoria and may differ for other states but should not alter significantly.

From the introduction of vaccination, there was a steady reduction of cases of measles.

For those born between 1969 and 1983, it is possible there is neither history of infection or immunisation.

For children born after 1983 there should be significant coverage with measles vaccination.

Current recommendations for all adolescents and adults born during or since 1966 should have either:

1. documented evidence of 2 doses of measles-containing vaccine given at least 4 weeks apart and with both doses given ≥12 months of age, or
2. serological evidence of immunity to measles, mumps and rubella

Thus the priority should be targeting persons born between 1969 and 1983 to perform Measles IgG serology. Also persons born overseas may be considered at risk and it would be worthwile performing Measles IgG serology for these individuals.

The DCP has a prompt on the panel for measles IgG serology testing for patients in appropriate ages.

The program Health Campaign for measles available within DCP extends the prompt on the panel with

1. An extra prompt at top of panel
2. A message to patients via SMS prior to consultation which prompts the patient to discuss having test for measles immunity with the GP during consultation. Such pre-emptive SMS prompts help to promote awareness and discussion of measles immunity testing.

To participate in the measles campaign a GP must sign on and provide consent to participate. As the SMS messages are sent from the GP to the patient as part of a research project the GP is not required to obtain patient consent prior to messages being sent. The GP if running the DCP will have a priority prompt on the top of the panel when a patient is opened in clinical software has has a SMS message sent for the current consultation.