Real-life effects of measles vaccination campaigns 

- do they improve child health beyond measles immunity?

Anshu Varma, cand.scient.san.publ, PhD  

In the last decades, worldwide, numerous measles vaccine campaigns have been implemented to control and eventually eradicate measles. During the same decades, mortality in children aged under-five has decreased tremendously. Meanwhile, accumulating evidence suggests that the measles vaccine protects against other infections than measles. Thus, measles vaccine campaigns may have efficiently contributed to decreasing the under-five child mortality beyond our common understanding.

No trials have studied the potential beneficial non-specific-effects of a measles vaccine campaign.

In a cluster-randomized trial, Anshu evaluates a measles vaccine campaign, by studying its short-term and long-term effect on mortality and morbidity due to any cause in rural Guinea-Bissau, where measles infection is rare and measles vaccine campaigns are still implemented.

Anshu’s research profile and publication list is available here.