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Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings

Background: Rubella is a contagious viral infection that occurs most often in children and young adults. Rubella is the leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects. Rubella infection in pregnant women may cause fetal death or congenital defects known as congenital rubella syndrome. There is n...

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Autores principales: Ferrari, Cristiana, Somma, Giuseppina, Gentili, Sandro, Manili, Gianmarco, Mauro, Gaetano, Treglia, Michele, Trabucco Aurilio, Marco, Magrini, Andrea, Coppeta, Luca
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10671143/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37998484
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11222992
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author Ferrari, Cristiana
Somma, Giuseppina
Gentili, Sandro
Manili, Gianmarco
Mauro, Gaetano
Treglia, Michele
Trabucco Aurilio, Marco
Magrini, Andrea
Coppeta, Luca
author_facet Ferrari, Cristiana
Somma, Giuseppina
Gentili, Sandro
Manili, Gianmarco
Mauro, Gaetano
Treglia, Michele
Trabucco Aurilio, Marco
Magrini, Andrea
Coppeta, Luca
author_sort Ferrari, Cristiana
collection PubMed
description Background: Rubella is a contagious viral infection that occurs most often in children and young adults. Rubella is the leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects. Rubella infection in pregnant women may cause fetal death or congenital defects known as congenital rubella syndrome. There is no specific treatment for rubella, but the disease is preventable by vaccination with an efficacy of over 95%. Vaccination coverage is still below the recommended levels and many cases have occurred worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the immunization programs and the quality of disease surveillance worldwide. Operators of the healthcare setting are at increased risk of infection due to their work duties and should receive preventive vaccination or serologic protection to work in a healthcare setting. Aims: To evaluate the serological evidence of rubella IgG antibodies in female healthcare operators of childbearing age, to assess the risk of a breakthrough infection and the need for an additional dose of vaccine. Methods: We collected age and antibody titers from 449 young female operators aged <50 years who underwent the periodic surveillance at the Occupational Medicine Unit of the Policlinico Tor Vergata, Rome, from January to July 2022. Subjects were considered immune if the anti-rubella IgG titer was >11.00 IU/mL. Results: The rate of serologically unprotected subjects was 9.13% (41/449). The mean age of protected subjects was 26.93 years, while the mean age of unprotected subjects was 28.24 years. Age did not correlate with mean titer on statistical analysis (p = 0.10). The acceptance rate among unprotected operators was 31.7%. A positive attitude towards vaccination was found in 11/28 (39.3%) of the unvaccinated subjects, while a negative tendency was found in 2/28 (7.1%) of these subjects; most of the unvaccinated operators 15/28 (53.6%) prefer to postpone the administration of the vaccine. When compared with a similar population from the pre-pandemic period, the actual proportion of immune female subjects was not significantly different from that found in 2019 (90.87% vs. 90.3%). Conclusions: Protection against rubella was suboptimal among female healthcare workers of childbearing age. Acceptance of the rubella vaccine among these operators was low. Most of those who were hesitant intended to postpone the vaccination, while a minority had negative attitudes toward vaccination. A policy of mandatory vaccination policy should overcome the reluctance of operators.
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spelling pubmed-106711432023-11-19 Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings Ferrari, Cristiana Somma, Giuseppina Gentili, Sandro Manili, Gianmarco Mauro, Gaetano Treglia, Michele Trabucco Aurilio, Marco Magrini, Andrea Coppeta, Luca Healthcare (Basel) Brief Report Background: Rubella is a contagious viral infection that occurs most often in children and young adults. Rubella is the leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects. Rubella infection in pregnant women may cause fetal death or congenital defects known as congenital rubella syndrome. There is no specific treatment for rubella, but the disease is preventable by vaccination with an efficacy of over 95%. Vaccination coverage is still below the recommended levels and many cases have occurred worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the immunization programs and the quality of disease surveillance worldwide. Operators of the healthcare setting are at increased risk of infection due to their work duties and should receive preventive vaccination or serologic protection to work in a healthcare setting. Aims: To evaluate the serological evidence of rubella IgG antibodies in female healthcare operators of childbearing age, to assess the risk of a breakthrough infection and the need for an additional dose of vaccine. Methods: We collected age and antibody titers from 449 young female operators aged <50 years who underwent the periodic surveillance at the Occupational Medicine Unit of the Policlinico Tor Vergata, Rome, from January to July 2022. Subjects were considered immune if the anti-rubella IgG titer was >11.00 IU/mL. Results: The rate of serologically unprotected subjects was 9.13% (41/449). The mean age of protected subjects was 26.93 years, while the mean age of unprotected subjects was 28.24 years. Age did not correlate with mean titer on statistical analysis (p = 0.10). The acceptance rate among unprotected operators was 31.7%. A positive attitude towards vaccination was found in 11/28 (39.3%) of the unvaccinated subjects, while a negative tendency was found in 2/28 (7.1%) of these subjects; most of the unvaccinated operators 15/28 (53.6%) prefer to postpone the administration of the vaccine. When compared with a similar population from the pre-pandemic period, the actual proportion of immune female subjects was not significantly different from that found in 2019 (90.87% vs. 90.3%). Conclusions: Protection against rubella was suboptimal among female healthcare workers of childbearing age. Acceptance of the rubella vaccine among these operators was low. Most of those who were hesitant intended to postpone the vaccination, while a minority had negative attitudes toward vaccination. A policy of mandatory vaccination policy should overcome the reluctance of operators. MDPI 2023-11-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10671143/ /pubmed/37998484 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11222992 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Brief Report
Ferrari, Cristiana
Somma, Giuseppina
Gentili, Sandro
Manili, Gianmarco
Mauro, Gaetano
Treglia, Michele
Trabucco Aurilio, Marco
Magrini, Andrea
Coppeta, Luca
Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings
title Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings
title_full Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings
title_fullStr Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings
title_full_unstemmed Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings
title_short Rubella Vaccine Uptake among Women of Childbearing Age in Healthcare Settings
title_sort rubella vaccine uptake among women of childbearing age in healthcare settings
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10671143/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37998484
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11222992
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