Rubella Vaccine
Jamie Hoffman-Rosenfeld MD1
1 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY
Editors: Henry M. Adam, MD.
Rubella usually is a mild viral illness characterized by an erythematous maculopapular rash, slight fever, and lymphadenopathy. Although serious complications of rubella, such as encephalitis and thrombocytopenia, are rare in children, the devastating consequences of the congenital rubella syndrome continue to propel a multipronged strategy to eliminate rubella infection.
Rubella vaccine is a live virus vaccine, which in the United States is the RA27/3 rubella virus strain grown in human diploid cell culture. Although one dose of vaccine confers lifelong immunity in greater than 90% of vaccine recipients, two doses now are recommended in conjunction with the measles vaccine. Because congenital rubella is a potentially devastating consequence of primary vaccine failure, the second dose of vaccine serves as an additional safeguard against such failures.
