Measles virus nomenclature update: 2012
Weekly Epidemiological Record, 87 (09): 73 - 80

Overview
The genetic characterization of circulating wild-type viruses is a critical component of measles laboratory surveillance
and molecular epidemiological studies.
The combination of molecular analysis
and standard case investigation provides
a sensitive means to describe the transmission pathways of measles virus and to
document the interruption of endemic
measles transmission. Absence of endemic genotype(s) is one of the criteria
for verifying measles elimination in a
country or region.
A standardized
methodology and nomenclature is used
to define measles sequences and genotypes. Two global reporting platforms
have been developed to collect and
analyse sequence data, the WHO Global
Measles and the Measles Nucleotide
Surveillance (MeaNS) databases.