April 26, 2026
2 min read
Key takeaways:
- Only 53.6% of children in central Ohio had received their first MMR vaccine on time.
- This percentage did not increase after a measles outbreak occurred in the region.
BOSTON — Measles vaccination coverage remained well below herd immunity rates nearly 2 years after a large measles outbreak in central Ohio, according to data presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting.
“Outbreak response can contain transmission in the short term, but improving vaccination coverage often requires sustained long-term work,” Rosemary A. Martoma, MD, MBChB, a fellow in general academic pediatrics and the computational health informatics program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, told Healio. “Real-time surveillance, strong primary care follow-up, accessible vaccination services and continued community engagement are all important.”
Measles vaccination coverage remained well below herd immunity rates nearly 2 years after a large measles outbreak in central Ohio. Image: Adobe Stock.
Martoma and colleagues analyzed local MMR vaccination coverage during a measles outbreak in central Ohio in 2022. The repeated cross-sectional surveillance study included 133,476 children who had a well-child visit at primary care clinics within the Nationwide Children’s system. They identified how many children were vaccinated against measles at the beginning of the outbreak in October 2022 and followed up 12 and 20 months after the outbreak started to see if vaccination rates changed. They also looked vaccination data for a subgroup of children Somali descent, who made up 71.1% of the 90 total cases, according to previous research published by Martoma and colleagues.
During the 2022-2023 school year, Ohio’s statewide MMR vaccination rate was 89.3%, according to the CDC. However, Martoma and colleagues discovered that timely vaccination in central Ohio was much lower.
In October 2022, only 53.6% of children had received their first MMR dose on time, and only 57.9% had received their second dose on time, according to the researchers. By age 7, 77.3% of children in the study had received at least one dose.
After 20 months, Martoma and colleagues saw very little change in these percentages. Timely first dose coverage did not change at allimely second dose coverage increased to 60.2and any dose by age 7 years increased to 77.9%.
Timely first dose coverage was even lower among children of Somali descent, and actually fell from 35.7% at outbreak onset to 33.5% after 20 months, data show.
An MMR vaccination rate of 95% is widely considered necessary to prevent measles outbreaks.
“The broader lesson is that population averages can hide important differences across groups,” Martoma said. “This body of work highlights that measles prevention is both a clinical and data challenge. Strong surveillance infrastructure can help detect immunity gaps earlier and support faster, more targeted responses before outbreaks grow.”
For more information:
Rosemary A. Martoma, MD, MBChB, can be reached at rosemary.martoma@childrens.harvard.edu.
Perspective
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Matthew Washam, MD, PhD
Disclosures: Washam reports no relevant financial disclosures.
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Martoma RA. Surveillance of Measles Vaccination Coverage After a Postelimination Outbreak: A Repeated
Cross-Sectional Study in a Primary Care Network. Presented at: Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting; April 24-27, 2026; Boston.
References:
Disclosures:
Martoma reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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