Role of schools in the transmission of measles in rural Senegal: Implications for measles control in developing countries

Patterns of measles transmission at school and at home were studied in 1995 in a rural area of Senegal with a high level of vaccination coverage. Among 209 case children with a median age of 8 years, there were no deaths, although the case fatality ratio has previously been 6-7% in this area. Forty percent of the case children had been vaccinated against measles; the proportion of vaccinated children was higher among secondary cases (47%) than among index cases (33%) (prevalence ratio = 1.36, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04-1.76). Vaccinated index cases may have been less infectious than unvaccinated index cases, since they produced fewer clinical cases among exposed children (relative risk = 0.55, 95% CI 0.29-1.04). The secondary attack rate was lower in the schools than in the homes (relative risk = 0.31, 95% CI 0.20-0.49). The school outbreaks were protracted, with 4-5 generations of cases being seen in the two larger schools. Vaccine efficacy was found to be 57% (95% CI -23 to 85) in the schools and 74% (95% CI 62-82) in the residential compounds. Measles infection resulted in a mean of 3.8 days of absenteeism per case, though this did not appear to have an impact on the children's grades. Among the index cases 56% of children were probably infected by neighbors in the community, and 7% were probably infected at health centers, 13% outside the community, and 24% in one of the three schools which had outbreaks during the epidemic. However, most of the school- related cases occurred at the beginning and therefore contributed to the general propagation of the epidemic. To prevent school outbreaks, it may be necessary to require vaccination prior to school entry and to revaccinate children in individual schools upon detection of cases of measles. Multidose measles vaccination schedules will be necessary to control measles in developing countries.