Objective To analyze measles antibody level in healthy populations and to identify susceptible populations in Yunnan province for providing evidences to prevention and control of measles.

Methods We selected 5 292 residents at 63 disease surveillance sites in 21 counties of Yunnan province with multistage random sampling and conducted a questionnaire survey and collected blood samples for detection of measles antibody with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We adopted SPSS 17.0 software in data analysis.

Results The positive rate of measles antibody was 90.91% (95% confidence interval 95% CI: 90.14 – 91.68%) and the geometric mean of antibody concentration was 967.28 mIU/ml. Both the positive rate and geometric mean of measles antibody differed significantly by region, age, nationality, immunization history among the participants. The participants at ages of 23 – 30 years had a significantly lower measles antibody levels and the highest susceptibility to measles virus (odds ratio OR = 2.52, 95% CI: 1.75 – 3.65) compared to those at other ages. The Han participants had a higher measles antibody level than the participants of other nationalities. The measles antibody level increased with the times of vaccination reported by the participants but the increment did not increase with the times of vaccination accordingly.

Conclusion The measles immunization level is not high enough to form an efficient immune barrier for measles epidemic among residents in Yunnan province and the result suggests that effective basic vaccination and timely supplemental immunization need to be implemented in the population.