Measles and rubella seroprevalence in a population of young adult blood donors, France 2013

As part of the evaluation of the French plan for the elimination of measles and rubella, we conducted a seroprevalence survey in 2013, aimed at updating seroprevalence data for people 18–32 years old. A secondary objective was to estimate measles incidence in this population during the 2009–2011 outbreak, and thus estimate the exhaustiveness of measles mandatory reporting. We used a cross-sectional survey design, targeting blood donors 18–32 years old, living in France since 2009, who came to give blood in a blood collecting site. We included 4647 people in metropolitan France, 806 people in Réunion Island and 496 in the French Caribbean. A further 3942 individuals were interviewed in the south-east region of metropolitan France to estimate the exhaustiveness of measles mandatory reporting. One of the main findings of this survey is that the proportion of people 18–32 years old susceptible to both measles and rubella infections remained high in France in 2013, 9.2% and 5.4%, respectively, in metropolitan France, even after the promotion campaigns about vaccination catch-up during and following the major measles epidemic in 2009–2011. Applying our results to French census data would suggest that around 1 million people aged 18–32 years old are currently susceptible to measles in France, despite this age group being one of the vaccination targets of the national measles elimination plan. Another important finding is that only an estimated 45% of the true number of cases in this age group was actually notified, despite notification being mandatory.