Detection of live attenuated measles virus in the respiratory tract following subcutaneous MMR Vaccination

Timothy A Watkins; Jacqueline K Brockhurst; Gregory Germain; Diane E Griffin; Ellen F Foxman

doi:10.1093/infdis/jiae537

Detection of live attenuated measles virus in the respiratory tract following subcutaneous MMR Vaccination

J Infect Dis. 2024 Nov 6:jiae537. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiae537. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Timothy A Watkins^{1

2}, Jacqueline K Brockhurst³, Gregory Germain⁴, Diane E Griffin³, Ellen F Foxman^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, U.S.A., 06520.
² Department of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, U.S.A., 06520.
³ Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, U.S.A., 21205.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, U.S.A., 06520.

PMID: 39504437
DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiae537

Abstract

The live attenuated measles vaccine is extremely effective in preventing measles and induces mucosal immunity in the respiratory tract, however the mechanism is not known. We show that live attenuated measles virus (LAMV) RNA is frequently detected in the respiratory tract 7-21 days after subcutaneous measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination in healthy children (n = 5/20) and macaques (n = 6/8). Replicating LAMV was isolated from the lungs of 2 macaques, with no evidence of transmission to unvaccinated individuals. These observations suggest that LAMV in the respiratory tract may play a role in the development of robust mucosal immunity following MMR vaccination.

Keywords: LAMV; MMR; live attenuated measles virus; measles; measles mumps rubella; mucosal immunity following vaccination; respiratory tract detection; rhesus macaque vaccination model.

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