Lancet
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Immunisation of 4-6 month old Gambian infants with Edmonston-Zagreb measles vaccine.
Five different vaccination schedules were used to immunise Gambian infants aged 4-6 months against measles with the attenuated Edmonston-Zagreb strain of virus, which has a history of passage in human diploid cells. Vaccine aerosol given either by mask in a dose of 3500 or 7000 plaque-forming units (PFU) or from a plastic bag at a dose of 7000 PFU raised haemagglutinin-inhibiting or plaque-inhibiting measles antibody 16-24 weeks after vaccination to a titre of 1 in 8 or greater in all but 3 of the 51 children so vaccinated. ⋯ None of the vaccinated children had clinical evidence of measles in the 12 to 17 months after vaccination. The Edmonston-Zagreb vaccine, given subcutaneously or by other routes at 4-6 months, may be useful in preventing measles in infants in African cities, where 15-30% of children have measles before they are 9 months old, which is the recommended age for immunisation with the chick-cell-adapted strains of measles virus.