Serological Surveys for complementing assessments of vaccination coverage in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review

Background: Serosurveys of biomarkers of infection/vaccination are widely used for evaluating vaccine-induced immunity and monitoring the effectiveness of immunisation programmes in developed countries. In sub-Saharan Africa (sSA) where vaccination coverage (VC) estimates are often incomplete, inaccurate and overestimate effective population immunity, the use of serosurveys is limited. Methods: We conducted a review of the use of serosurveys to assess/complement assessments of VC in sSA by searching electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Popline, Ovid and Africa Wide Information) for English language articles published from 1 January 1940 to 31 January 2017. We also searched the references of retrieved articles. SSA was defined as all of Africa excluding the countries in North Africa. We included only articles that measured VC and assessed the quality of these studies using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Results: We found 1056 unique records, reviewed 20 eligible studies of which just 12 met our inclusion criteria. These 12 studies were serosurveys of measles, tetanus, polio and yellow fever. Antibodies induced by natural infection confounded serological test results and there was significant discordance between vaccination history and the presence of antibodies in all except for tetanus vaccine. No study looked at Hepatitis B. Conclusions: Serosurveys for tetanus or tetanus containing vaccines may be directly useful for ascertainment of vaccination exposure or reliably complement current survey methods that measure VC. Given the limited experience in using serosurveys for this purpose in sSA, well-designed serosurveys of tetanus and possibly hepatitis B are required to further validate/evaluate their performance