Epidemiological study of measles in Ghazvin, Islamic Republic of Iran, April 1997–April 2003

We studied measles incidence and morbidity in Ghazvin district by retrospective review of cases registered at the central health office and admitted to two hospital in Ghazvin city during April 1997–April 2003. There were 824 clinically confirmed cases of measles over the 6-year period giving a mean annual incidence of 18.67 per 100 000 population, higher than for the country generally. There were no deaths from measles. Of the 824 cases, 591 (71.1%) had serum specimens for serological analysis and 199 (24.3%) were confirmed serologically. Of the serologically confirmed cases, the greatest proportion (44.2%) were over 20 years (median age was 17.5 years), 54.5% had been in contact with a measles case and 21.6% cases had received 2 doses of vaccine. We studied 33 serologically confirmed hospitalized cases. Common complications were vomiting (45.5%), diarrhoea (42.4%) and pneumonia (21.2%). The mean duration of hospitalization was 3.8 days.