• Wiesław Jedrychowski, Umberto Maugeri, and Iwona Jedrychowska-Bianchi.
• Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Collegium Medicum, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. myjedryc@cyf-kr.edu.pl
• Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2004 Jan 1; 17 (2): 255-61.

BackgroundA hypothesis that vaccination with live attenuated measles virus performed in early childhood may prevent allergic sensitization has been explored in the course of a 3-year follow-up study in Kraków (Poland) among 1005 school children.Materials And MethodsThe basic respiratory health end-points were chronic respiratory symptoms, allergy, asthma and susceptibility to acute respiratory infections. Information about immunization status of children was extracted from individual vaccination records kept by school nurses. The study showed the highest rates of chronic respiratory symptoms in non-vaccinated children who contracted measles while the lowest rates in those vaccinated who did not contract the disease.Results And ConclusionsRisk of allergy diagnosed by a physician in vaccinated children after adjustment to potential confounders was about half of that in the reference group (OR = 0.58 95% CI: 0.42-0.80), the same was found for asthma diagnosed by a physician (OR = 0.50 95% CI: 0.24-1.00), and for susceptibility to respiratory infections (OR = 0.51 95% CI: 0.36-0.72). Our data provide indirect evidence that infection with attenuated measles virus is able to alter immunological reactions being responsible for the manifestation of respiratory symptoms and allergy.

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