Increased long term mortality associated with rash after early measles vaccination in rural Senegal.

OBJECTIVES

To examine whether clinical symptoms, including rash, were more common after measles immunization compared with placebo and to study the association between postvaccination symptoms and later mortality.

DESIGN

Examination of side effects in the 3 weeks after immunization in a trial of high titer and standard titer measles vaccines.

PATIENTS

Two hundred twenty-four children randomly selected to be included in the surveillance for diarrhea, fever and rash.

RESULTS

There was no difference in fever and diarrhea between recipients of high titer vaccines and recipients of placebo. However, high titer recipients tended to have more measles-like rashes than placebo recipients [relative risk, 2.12 (range, 0.90 to 5.03)]. Among recipients of high titer vaccines, children who presented a rash had higher mortality in the following 5 to 7 years than those who did not develop rash [mortality rate ratio, 3.85 (range, 1.52 to 9.79)]. High titer recipients without a rash had the same mortality as children in the placebo group who were given standard doses of measles vaccine at 10 months of age [mortality rate, 0.76 (range, 0.35 to 1.62)].

CONCLUSIONS

These observations suggest that in this particular study, rash after high titer measles vaccine may identify children who received a particularly high dose of vaccine or children with more severe and persistent postvaccination immunosuppression. Whether high titer vaccine is more likely than standard titer measles vaccine to provoke such reaction is not known, given that we did not compare side effects after different titers of measles vaccine. Future trials of live measles vaccine should monitor the development of rash.