Demographic and clinical features in patients with vaccinated and unvaccinated measles

This study investigated the demographic and clinical characteristics of measles patients who presented to the emergency department, analyzing the relationship with their vaccination status. This single-center and retrospective study included 110 patients with confirmed measles. The patients were categorized based on their clinical outcomes (ambulatory monitoring and inpatient) and vaccination status (≥2 doses vs. <2 doses). We compared demographic and clinical characteristics between these patient groups. Our study included 57 females (51.82%) and 53 males (48.18%), with a mean age of 9.32±10.47 years. Seventy percent of patients were aged ≤10 years. The most common symptoms upon admission were fever (77.27%), fatigue (49.09%), and cough (35.45%). Complications included otitis media (6.36%), pneumonia (2.73%), and seizure (0.91%). Despite no significant differences in hospitalization and severe disease between those who received ≥2 doses of the measles vaccine and those who did not, all hospitalized patients were unvaccinated. Furthermore, 81.8% of complicated measles cases occurred in patients who were not vaccinated with the effective dose. Our study indicates that measles is more severe in unvaccinated patients compared to vaccinated cases. All hospitalizations and most complications were observed in the unvaccinated group. Additionally, most cases were in the pediatric age group.