Objective To evaluate the impact of vaccination with measles-containing vaccine (MCV) among key groups of people aged 15 – 45 years on measles incidence in Heilongjiang province during 2011 – 2017.
Methods Data on measles incidence in Heilongjiang province from 2004 to 2017 were extracted from National Infectious Disease Report Information Management System. Information on MCV vaccination in the key populations aged 15 – 45 years in the province from 2011 to 2017 were also collected and analyzed. Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis was used to evaluate the effectiveness of MCV vaccination based on historical measles incidence data of the province.
Results Four annual peaks of measles incidence were identified in 2006 (3 425 reported cases), 2008 (1 227), 2010 (6 279), and in 2014 (754), during 2004 – 2017 in the province and a number of the reported cases were aged over 15 years. The results of ITS-discontinuous linear regression analysis demonstrated that the trend in monthly measles incidence changed significantly after the MCV vaccination intervention in 2011, with a slope change value of 3.514 (P = 0.001 59).
Conclusion After seven years′ MCV vaccination in key population, the measles epidemic has been effectively controlled and the trajectory of variation in measles monthly incidence changed from a upward trend to a horizontal trend in Heilongjiang province during 2011 – 2017.