Altered Rubella Virus Persists in Vaccinated Children with Primary Immunodeficiencies

Genetically determined primary immune deficiencies (PID) usually manifest early in childhood with varying degrees of immune impairment. Live attenuated vaccines such as the rubella vaccine are contraindicated for these children, but some are diagnosed with PID only after vaccination. Previous work has shown that such children may develop granulomas of the skin that contain infectious vaccine-derived virus (iVDRV).

These researchers extensively characterized the rubella vaccine-derived viruses isolated from granulomas in four patients and from nasopharyngeal secretions in one patient with PID. The analyses indicated that each iVDRV isolate had mutations and replicative and persistence properties that differed from each other and from those of…