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CDC: Health care providers must remain vigilant about congenital rubella
Congenital rubella syndrome remains endemic in parts of the world, but most of the cases reported in the United States in recent years were related to infections in other countries, according to the results of a recent CDC report.
Albert E. Barskey, MPH, an epidemiologist in the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention at the CDC, and colleagues wrote that although the congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) is rare in the United States, “health care providers and public health officials should consider CRS in an infant with compatible birth defects whose mother was in a rubella-endemic country during her pregnancy.”
Since 2004, when CRS elimination from the United States was documented, six patients with the syndrome have been reported, and in five of these instances, “infection of the mother in a foreign country was thought highly probable, given travel history,” the researchers said.
“Although CRS is a rare occurrence in the United States, in this era of elimination, health care providers and public health officials should maintain a high level of suspicion among children born with birth defects compatible with CRS to mothers who were in rubella-endemic countries during their pregnancies, so that appropriate and timely specimens can be collected and a thorough epidemiologic investigation can be conducted to confirm the disease,” Barskey told Infectious Diseases in Children.
Albert E. Barskey IV, MPH, can be reached at the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention at the CDC, 1600 Clifton Road NE, Mailstop E-47, Atlanta, GA 30333; email: abarskey@cdc.gov.
Disclosure: Barskey reports no relevant financial disclosures.
