Estimation of measles risk using the World Health Organization Measles Programmatic Risk Assessment Tool, Iran.

Introduction: Based on the World Health Organization (WHO) reports the EMRO countries did not reached to eradication of measles at 2010. This study aimed to estimate the risk of measles outbreak in different districts of Iran to identify high-risk areas based on WHO measles programmatic risk assessment tool.

Materials and methods: The WHO measles programmatic risk assessment tool was used to estimate the overall risk of measles in 31 providences and 322 districts of Iran at 2017. The measles risk was calculated by a function of four indicator scores including population immunity, surveillance quality, program performance, and threat assessment and the overall risk of measles for each districts calculated. Then, the tool assigned each district a risk category of low, medium, high, or very high according to the overall risk score.

Results: Of the 322 districts in Iran, all districts were categorized as low risk and there was no very high risk, high risk and medium risk district in Iran. Twenty-six districts (7.4%) received to risk point higher than 20. Based on population immunity and program delivery performance indicators, all districts in Iarn were categorized as low risk and 92.86% of districts were in low risk category by surveillance quality indicator.

Conclusion: The overall risk of measles profile was categorized as low risk and Iranian practices for measles elimination is very good in comparing other studies in this area. However, more attempts should be conducted to sustaining the surveillance quality indicators in all districts.