Vaccine
Volume 31, Issue 4, Pages 567-724 (11 January 2013)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0264410X

Models of strategies for control of rubella and congenital rubella syndrome—A 40 year experience from Australia
Original Research Article
Pages 691-697
Zhanhai Gao, James G. Wood, Margaret A. Burgess, Robert I. Menzies, Peter B. McIntyre, C. Raina MacIntyre

Abstract
We investigated the impact of vaccination on rubella epidemiology in Australia, using a mathematical model fitted to Australian serosurvey data and incorporating pre-vaccination European estimates of rubella transmissibility. Mass infant measles–mumps–rubella (MMR) vaccination produced a 99% reduction in both rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) incidence by 2010 compared to the pre-vaccination era (1960–70). The model is consistent with reductions in CRS based on surveillance of congenital hearing impairment. Model simulations suggest that selective schoolgirl vaccination (1971–88) was associated with a 90% reduction in CRS incidence, but only a 1–4% reduction in rubella incidence. Our model predicted that these reductions in rubella were much less vulnerable to reductions in MMR vaccine coverage than for measles. In the future, a less than 15% decrease in MMR vaccine coverage is estimated to have minimal impact before 2060, but a 20% reduction may result in a 7-fold increase in rubella incidence, with the effective reproductive number R rising from 0.28 to 0.78 by 2060. The 99% reduction in both rubella and CRS incidence and low effective reproductive number (R ≤ 0.28) we documented after 2010 are consistent with Australia having achieved rubella elimination.