Breast-feeding, nutrition status and socio-economic progress in Barbados - abstract

The purpose of this project is to study rubella immunity percentage in one hundred pregnant women and to try to get some guidance as to the necessity for an effective rubella vacination programme. Excluded from the study were women who were vaccinated against rubella and women who had had recent rubella and requested a termination of pregnancy. The method used to determine the rubella immunity was the rubella test which is a complement fixation method. Of the 100 patients studied, 51 percent were in the age group 15 to 25, 36 percent in the 25-35-age group and 13 percent in the 35-year group and over. Fifty-three per cent of the patients showed immunity and 47 percent were non-immune. A survey done in Trinidad in 1969 showed that 75 percent of women 15 to 30 years of age were non-immune and 60 percent of 15-year-olds and over were not immune. A W.H.O. collaborative study showed rubella positive percentage to be low in Trinidad and other islands. It had been previously proposed that a certain minimum population density is necessary to maintain the disease in epidemic form. Theoretically, the minimal levels is not reached on the island, and the disease must be periodically introduced from mainland areas. Although the rubella immunity rate has increased over the years, the authors feel that a 53 percent immunity rate is still low and, coupled with the increasing numbers of rubella syndrome babies being born at Mount Hope, we recommend that a more intensive programe of vaccination be instituted. Rubella reinfection after vaccination has been demonstrated. However, 85 percent of vaccinated patients may be sero-positive after 5 years (AU)