[An epidemiologic study on an outbreak of measles in a particular group of infants].

An outbreak of measles broke out and prevailed in the Beijing Children Welfare House from March 23rd to April 27th, 1992. The 18 victims accounted for 4.8% of the whole infant population in the Welfare House, 11 of them being babies of less than 8 months. One third of the attacked babies were in bad condition and were hospitalized in the observation room. The clinical manifestations indicated that severe symptoms, more complications but favourable prognosis were characteristic of the infant patients. Based on the epidemiologic study and serological test, it was found that the outbreak and spread of the measles originated from outside the Welfare House. It was also found that the vaccinated handicapped infants exposed to natural measles were highly protected. This investigation leads to the conclusion that the cause of this measles outbreak was laid to the vacancy of planning immunization and the existence of a large number of non-protected babies.