THE experience with live attenuated rubella virus vaccines which has accumulated in the last few years shows a clear need for a rubella vaccine that is not only safe and effective, but also has few or no side affects when recommended as a routine procedure. Age seems to affect the intensity of the clinical response to vaccine administration, and, since joint manifestations have been reported in adult women immunized with rubella vaccine,1-3 it was considered desirable to study the age effect further by investigating the clinical and serological reactions in a broad age spectrum of susceptible women.
For this purpose a field trial was initiated in Israel during the autumn and winter months of 1968 and 1969 which included a representative number of female subjects of various ages. The preliminary observations of the trial are presented in this report.
Materials and Methods
Study Group.—This group included 239 girls,