Abstract

In France, almost 23,000 cases of measles and 10 deaths have been reported between January 2008 and August 2012. French health authorities recommend delivery of human polyvalent immunoglobulins in the event of exposure to a measles case for some categories of unvaccinated persons (children under the age of 12 months, immunocompromised persons and pregnant women), within six days after exposure and following laboratory confirmation of the contact case. We carried out a postal survey among 368 French hospital pharmacies to evaluate the number of persons affected by this measure between 1 January 2010 and 31 August 2011, to describe the characteristics of these patients and to evaluate the application of the recommendations in terms of delay between exposure and immunoglobulin delivery, and confirmation of the contact case. The response rate to the survey was 73%. In total, 400 immunoglobulin deliveries were listed, most of them for children under the age of one year, and 84% of the 250 administrations with available information occurred within six days after exposure, as recommended. However, only 48% of the 209 treated contacts with available information were laboratory-confirmed when the immunoglobulins were delivered. This survey is the first evaluation of this recommendation since its introduction in 2005 and suggests that the recommendations may need to be updated.