EVALUATION OF HEALTHY UNVACCINATED CHILDREN S IMMUNITY TO MUMPS IN KARAJ

This analytical observational and epidemiological study was done in order to evaluate the relative immunity to mumps in healthy and unvaccinated children in Karaj aged 4 to 7 years.Therefore, 194 serum samples were taken through no probability sampling and tested by hemagglutination inhibition test. For each of the samples dilution of 1/2 to 1/128 was tested using guinea pig red blood cells and mumps virus anti genes prepared in laboratory on cell culture. Then, obtained results were analyzed, as absolute and relative frequency in total, in girl and boy groups and in different age groups separately which revealed that 35% of total had no measurable antibody titer(below 1/2). Also 66% of total studied children were susceptible to mumps by considering the titer equal or greater than 1/8 as the protective titer. There was no significant difference between sex and susceptibility to the disease(P<0.05). According to the high percentage susceptibility of children to mumps, it is recommended to pay enough attention to immunization programms against this disease.