Anti-rubella, Mumps and Measles IgG Antibodies in Medical Students of Tehran University

Measles, mumps and rubella are viral infectious diseases that may result in serious complications. Since the production of vaccines, the number of cases of these diseases has been dropped. Nevertheless, these infectious diseases are still one of the major health problems in developing countries. In this study, in order to evaluate the protective responses against measles, mumps and rubella, the level and avidity of virus-specific IgG antibodies were measured in 53 medical students of Tehran University, aged between 20-30 years. Except for mumps vaccine, all the students had been vaccinated against measles and rubella according to Iran's nationwide mass vaccination protocol for all persons aged 5-25 in 2003. Our results showed that 96.2% of the volunteers had a protective level (>15 IU/ml) of IgG against rubella, 79.2% had a protective level (>11 IU/ml) of IgG against measles and 64.16% had a protective level (>11 IU/ml) of IgG against mumps. Over ten years after nationwide measles-rubella vaccination campaign, most young adults aged 20-30 had protective levels of humoral immunity against measles and rubella. However, Iranian young population is still unvaccinated against mumps, and therefore relatively large number of young adults had no protective level of IgG against it. This finding may be due to reduction in circulating of wild strain. We recommend screening of medical students for immunity against infectious agents such as measles, mumps, rubella, because they are at a high risk of these infectious agents.