Measles and Rubella Incidence and Molecular Epidemiology in Senegal: Temporal and Regional Trends during Twelve Years of National Surveillance, 2010–2021

We investigated the epidemiology of measles and rubella infections in Senegal based on data from twelve consecutive years of laboratory-based surveillance (2010–2021) and conducted phylogenetic analyses of circulating measles viruses. Sera from measles-suspected cases were collected and tested for measles and rubella-specific IgM antibodies using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Throat swabs were collected from patients with clinically diagnosed measles for confirmation by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and viral genotyping. Among 8082 laboratory-tested specimens from measles-suspected cases, serological evidence of measles and rubella infection was confirmed in 1303/8082 (16.1%) and 465/6714 (6.9%), respectively. The incidence of rubella is now low—0.8 (95% CI 0.4–1.3) cases per million people in 2021—whereas progress towards measles pre-elimination targets (