"Overall, studies have shown that two-thirds or more of women get vaccinated appropriately," said co-author Susan Reef, M.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We found that in this high-risk population, only 21 percent of non-immune women were vaccinated."

Reef and colleagues from the CDC and the Miami-Dade County Health Department reviewed medical records for 2001 from four Miami birthing hospitals . The majority of births at these hospitals are to women of Hispanic and Haitian origin, a group at high risk for congenital rubella syndrome due to historically low vaccination rates in their native countries.

Vaccination rates were even lower among women who had not been screened for rubella immunity --just 2 percent received vaccinations, according to the study in the latest American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Of the 1,991 women whose medical records were reviewed, 410 were eligible for vaccination, either because they were not immune or because there was no record that they had been screened. Only 44 of these women (11 percent) received postpartum vaccinations.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine be offered to all women of childbearing age who do not have evidence of rubella immunity. The goal of the U.S. rubella vaccination program is to prevent congenital rubella infections, which can result in miscarriages, stillbirths, and a constellation of birth defects known as congenital rubella syndrome (CRS).

As postpartum immunization of the mother comes too late for the child already born, only future children of the woman will be protected from CRS. It is not considered safe to give the rubella vaccine during pregnancy.

"Rubella is a mild diseas
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Contact: Susan Reef, M.D.
ser2@cdc.gov
Center for the Advancement of Health
7-Feb-2006