Introduction: Agents of measles, rubella, and parvovirus B19 are among the etiologies of skin exanthematous diseases. Due to similarity in appearance of their skin rashes, clinical differential diagnosis is difficult.

Methods: The method of choice for diagnosis of active infection with all these three agents is detection of specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) against them by ELISA method. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 424 sera samples taken from suspected measles cases in different cities of Khuzestan province were analyzed.

Results: 8 In the meanwhile, among the measles-positive patients, 104 cases (24.5%) had been previously vaccinated against measles, 55 cases (12.9%) of which had been vaccinated twice, and 49 (11.5%) had been vaccinated three times.

Conclusion: Taking into consideration the relatively high frequency of measles among these patients, it seems that the vaccination program against measles has not been much successful in the Khuzestan province. Furthermore, since the majority of measles patients were young adults, it is proposed to revise the time interval between the two doses of the measles vaccine, and inject the first dose in 9-12 months of age and the second dose in pre-school age (4-6 years).

Hakim Research Journal 2007 10(3): 17- 21.