One of the most contagious infectious illnesses is measles. The measles vaccination, which was launched in Italy in 1979, is extremely successful in avoiding the disease. Italy ranked second in the EU in terms of measles cases in 2017. A research performed the same year found that 22.3 percent of measles infections occurred in hospital settings, with HCWs accounting for 6.6 percent of cases. This risk group adhered to the immunization program at a low percentage. As a result, researchers anticipated that workplace vaccination would result in higher vaccination rates among HCWs. Furthermore, they targeted the immunization effort at a specific target group of HCWs who were not serologically immune and had not previously been vaccinated. They examined the clinical records of 2,940 HCWs who had measles-specific IgG antibodies and were subjected to occupational health surveillance between January 1 and December 31, 2017. 15.3 percent were seronegative for measles, particularly among those under the age of 35. They evaluated the costs of methods that included and did not include serological screening. Immunization with pre-vaccination screening was more cost-effective than vaccination without screening.

Vaccination of healthcare workers is a hot topic in the fight against infectious disease transmission in the hospital setting. The study proposes expanding the pre-vaccination screening to identify the true vulnerable employees based on the cost-effectiveness analysis.

Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2019.1616505

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