Duration of maternally derived antibody against measles: a seroepidemiological study of infants aged under 8 months in Qinghai, China

To estimate the sero-prevalence of protective maternal measles antibodies among young infants and examine patterns of waning immunity in one of the poorest provinces in China, infants aged under 8 months and their mothers were randomly selected by multi-stage probabilistic sampling and blood samples were collected. Measles-specific IgG antibodies were measured in all serum samples by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We determined measles-specific antibody titres for 477 pairs of infants and their mothers. After excluding 44 sub-clinical measles infection in infants, the measles antibody titres were ≧1:200, ≧1:800, and ≧1:3200 in 79.2%, 46.9%, and 17.8% of the 433 infants, respectively. The proportion of infants with titre ≧1:800 declined with age from 90.2% in newborns to 45.5% and 14.9% in the fourth and eighth month, respectively. Among the 433 mothers, measles antibody titres were ≧1:800 in 94.0%. Multivariate regression analysis showed that residence, mother's antibody levels and infant's age were significantly associated with infants’ having a measles antibody titre ≧1:800. The relatively rapid decay of protective antibody in infants suggests that an earlier administration of the first dose of measles vaccination should be considered in China and a high quality interventional study is needed to decide the optimal schedule of measles immunization.