What is WHO’s recommendation regarding the choice of mumps vaccine to be used in a vaccination program?
Countries select which vaccines will be licensed and used in their own vaccination programs. These decisions are made based on the epidemiology and public health importance of the diseases and the available resources for effective use of a specific vaccine in the programme. For example, insufficient childhood mumps vaccination coverage (below 80%) may result in an undesirable epidemiological shift in the incidence of mumps to older age groups. Currently 102 (53%) of 192 WHO member states include mumps in their routine childhood vaccination programmes, mostly as the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Most of these are countries in Europe and the Region of the Americas. The Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (which advises WHO) has concluded that available data are insufficient to distinguish between the safety profile with respect to aseptic meningitis for Urabe, Leningrad-Zagreb and Leningrad-3 strains. The committee recommends that if Urabe, Leningrad-Zagreb and Le
