FIELD-EVALUATION OF THE CLINICAL EFFECTIVENESS OF VACCINES AGAINST PERTUSSIS, MEASLES, RUBELLA AND MUMPS

Beginning in March 1995, in the adjacent provinces of Benevento and Ca mpobasso in Southern Italy, we carried out a sentinal, paediatrician-b ased surveillance on pertussis, measles, rubella and mumps with the ai m of evaluating the health impact of new vaccination programmes and th e objectives of describing the time-space trends and estimating the ef fectiveness of new vaccinations. The study population consisted of 16 500 children attended by 25 paediatricians. The estimated effectivenes s of vaccines for pertussis, measles, and rubella were close to the ex pected values, although a very low effectiveness was calculated for th e mumps vaccine. The comparison among children vaccinated with various strains showed a diseases odds ratio of 2.5 for the children vaccinat ed with Rubini strain. The effectiveness of this strain has to be veri fied in more rigorous settings. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rig hts reserved.