Ring vaccination
| Ring vaccination | |
|---|---|
 A vaccination |
Ring vaccination is a strategy to inhibit the spread of a disease by vaccinating only those who are most likely to be infected.[1]
Medical use
When someone falls ill, adults they might have infected are vaccinated. Depending on how easily the disease spreads, contacts who could have been infected might include family, neighbours, and friends. Several layers of contacts (the contacts, the contacts' contacts, the contact's contacts' contacts, etc.) may be vaccinated. Some vaccines will protect even if they are given just after infection, but even if the vaccine does not, ring vaccination can prevent the virus from being transmitted again, to the contacts' contacts.
Advantages
When responding to a possible outbreak, health officials should consider which is best, ring vaccination or mass vaccination. In some outbreaks, it might be better to only vaccinate those directly exposed; variable factors (such as demographics and the vaccine that is available) can make one method or the other safer, with fewer people experiencing side-effects when the same number are protected from the disease.[2]
History
Ring vaccination was used in the eradication of smallpox.[3][4]
It was also used experimentally in the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.[5][6]
In 2018, health authorities used a ring vaccination strategy to try to suppress the 2018 Équateur province Democratic Republic of the Congo Ebola virus outbreak. This involved vaccinating only those most likely to be infected; direct contacts of infected individuals, and contacts of those contacts. The vaccine used was rVSV-ZEBOV.[7]
See also
References
- ↑ Kucharski, Adam J.; Eggo, Rosalind M.; Watson, Conall H.; Camacho, Anton; Funk, Sebastian; Edmunds, W. John (2016). "Effectiveness of Ring Vaccination as Control Strategy for Ebola Virus Disease". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 22 (1): 105–108. doi:10.3201/eid2201.151410. PMC 4696719. PMID 26691346.
- ↑ Kretzschmar, Mirjam; Wallinga, Jacco; Teunis, Peter; Xing, Shuqin; Mikolajczyk, Rafael (2006-08-01). "Frequency of Adverse Events after Vaccination with Different Vaccinia Strains". PLoS Medicine. 3 (8): e272. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0030272. ISSN 1549-1277. PMC 1551910. PMID 16933957.
- ↑ Strassburg, M. A. (1982). "The global eradication of smallpox". American journal of infection control. 10 (2): 53–9. doi:10.1016/0196-6553(82)90003-7. PMID 7044193.
- ↑ "World on the verge of an effective Ebola vaccine". World Health Organization. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
- ↑ James Gallagher (31 July 2015). "Ebola vaccine is 'potential game-changer'". BBC News Health. UK: BBC. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
- ↑ Henao-Restrepo, Ana Maria; et al. (31 July 2015). "Efficacy and effectiveness of an rVSV-vectored vaccine expressing Ebola surface glycoprotein: interim results from the Guinea ring vaccination cluster-randomised trial" (PDF). The Lancet. 386: 857–866. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61117-5. PMID 26248676. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
- ↑ Aizenman, Nurith (May 15, 2018). "Can The New Ebola Vaccine Stop The Latest Outbreak?". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
Further reading
- "WHO | First Ebola vaccine to be tested in affected communities one year into outbreak". www.who.int. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
