1971 Volume 45 Issue 2 Pages 50-53
We ever reported an incidence of congenital rubella syndrome epidemic which occurred in Ryukyu Island in 1965, then under US administration, involving a surprisingly great number of patients, the number so far rare in the history of this disease.
To establish the future prophylactic measure of rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), it is thought to be of great value to look into the prior status there to that epidemic
In this line we examined 237 (125 males and 112 females) pupils in Okinawa Deaf-and-Dumb School, the only school of that sort in those areas, with our following diagnostic criterion: CRS=congenital deafness plus rubella retinopathy.
The results were as follows:
Twenty six cases (15 males and 11 females) were found to be CRS. Twenty cases of them were children born during 1956-1957. This is a coincidental fact with the observations of the doctors in those localities that there broke out an rubella epidemic around the year eight years prior to the 1965's epidemic.
The defects assorted in the CRS patients studied were: rubella retinopathy with deafness and heart disease-5 cases (patent ductus arteriosus-4 cases and pulmonary artery stenosis-1 case) and with deafness alone-21 cases. Rubella HI antibody was tested in 24 cases of them by the use of Courland Duracyte Rubella Diagnostic Kit for Micro-Technic. All were shown to have the antibody ranging from 1: 10 to 1: 160.
It was disclosed by this survey that there undoubtedly an rubella epidemic around the year 8 years prior to the 1965 epidemic. The scale of this, however, was thought small and the areas limited, despite it durated for more than 2 years. This explanes one of the main factors contributed to the 1965 epidemic, of CRS that many expectant mothers had remained susceptible to the virus till that incide.
