Divergent mortality for male and female recipients of low-titre and high-titre measles vaccines in rural Senegal

Aaby P, Samb B

1993

Senegal

The female-male mortality ratio from 9 months to 5 years of age for unvaccinated children was 0.94. It was 0.64 for recipients of the standard measles vaccine. In the 4 year period where high-titre measles vaccines were used in the study area, the female-male mortality ratio was 1.33 for recipients of the high-titre vaccine and 0.67 for recipients of the standard vaccine. Hence the standard and high-titre measles vaccines have divergent sex-specific effects on mortality.

This is one of the rare studies exploring the non-specific effects on health of early vaccinations. See entries 199, 224 and 229.