2013 한국미생물학회연합 국제학술대회, 2013, 02, 276─276

Regional outbreak of measles caused by genotype B3 measles virus in Korea

HaeJi Kang, Hye-Jeong Cho, Jeong Sun Yang, Kyung Hwa Yoo, Seungtae Kim, Jeong-Gu Nam, Young-Joon Park, Joo Whee Kim, Hye Suk Eom, Kwang-hyun Lee, Kisoon Kim

Abstract

Measles is a highly contagious disease caused by measles virus (MV), which is an envelope, negative sense virus that contains a single stranded RNA genome belonging to the genus Morbillivirus, family Paramyxoviridae. Measles vaccine was introduced in 1965 and the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine has been administered since 1980s in Korea. According to successful national immunization program, Korea declared nation-wide measles elimination in 2006. Thereafter, measles is considered as a disease of the past but local and limited regional outbreaks have still occurred sporadically in Korea. Here, we are describing imported-related measles outbreak occurred in Gyeongnam province in this year. According to dynamics of epidemiological investigation, the outbreak of measles occurred at a high school and then gradually spread surrounding regions mainly through nosocomial infections. We identified 83 confirmed measles cases from the region and investigated genetic characteristics as well as genotypes of the virus. Based on the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, the 450 bp sequences encoding the C-terminal 150 amino acids of the hypervariable region of the N gene were analyzed for MV genotyping. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that majority of the isolates was classified into genotype B3 which has not circulated in Korea previously. Through the MeanS which is web-based MV genotype database hosted by the WHO, genotype B3 of MVs have also been identified as circulating strain in some parts of central Africa, Europe, Middle East and western hemisphere. These results strongly indicate outbreak of measles occurred in Gyeongnam province is likely associated with importations from other countries. Taken together, an outbreak of measles in Gyeongnam province was lead by MV genotype B3 and the most vulnerable population was unimmunized individuals or possible vaccine failure groups which played a pocket of insufficient immune status against MV infection in this outbreak.

• 본 연구는 질병관리본부 연구개발과제(과제번호 2012-N47001-00) 연구비를 지원받아 수행되었습니다.
• This research was supported by a fund(code 2012-N47001-00) by Research of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.