Measles Surveillance System in the Islamic Republic of Iran: History, Structures and Achievements

Elimination and eradication of measles requires designing and implementing an enhanced surveillance system. The purpose of this study was to review the measles surveillance system in Iran.

The data of this study were obtained from the surveillance system of the Center for Communicable Disease Control; a review of the records, documents, books, and published articles; and interviews with process owners and experts of measles surveillance in 2017-2019.

Iran has a surveillance plan to eliminate the measles. The current design for suspected cases of measles in Iran is a case-based surveillance system, in which for each identified case with fever and maculopapular rashes, some activities such reporting, laboratory confirmation, clinical and epidemiological investigation and case registration in individual forms are done.

Complete surveillance of cases suspicious of measles and high coverage of vaccination in children less than 2 years in a cohesive surveillance system and rapid response to the outbreak have led to lack of occurrence of indigenous measles in Iran. Although the current status of the measles surveillance system in Iran seems to be favorable, since Iran is at the stage of measles elimination, it is essential to increase the sensitivity of the reporting system for suspected cases of measles and to maintain the status of vaccine coverage to save elimination status.