The WHO South-East Asia Region has resolved to eliminate measles and rubella by 2026 with verification of elimination by 2029. As of March 2025, four countries have eliminated measles, and five countries have eliminated rubella. The remaining countries have low level transmission for both measles and rubella with incidence of less than 5 per million population putting the countries at near-elimination status.
With reduced incidence of measles and rubella in SEAR, the positive predictive value of confirmatory tests for measles and rubella have decreased which is posing challenge in classifying suspected cases.
WHO SEARO developed a new algorithm with laboratory tests in addition to conventional test to classify doubtful cases of IgM positive measles and rubella which needs to be implemented.
Thus, this webinar was been planned to orient and enhance coordination among the immunization, surveillance and laboratory teams to identify true and false positive as well as negative cases and streamline partner and stakeholders support towards acceleration of progress towards measles and rubella elimination.
The webinar was attended by more than 475 Public health professionals, clinicians, laboratory colleagues working on or interested in measles and rubella elimination participated. The participants represented 35 nationalities from five of the six WHO Regions including 11 countries from SEAR.
The webinar provided answers to common queries like
- What are vaccine associated measles and how to identify them?
- Why children with two or more doses of measles–rubella vaccines are still laboratory positive for measles or rubella?
- How to identify true positive cases of measles and rubella?
Moderator and Panelists, Photo Credit: WHO/IVD