Clinical Study of Immunity Duration of Yellow Fever Vaccine in Military

Yellow fever is an acute viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes in South America, Central America and Africa. It is more prevalente in males gender and the age above 15 years due to the greater exposure in the wild endemic area of yellow fever.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a single dose of the yellow fever vaccine is sufficient to maintain protective immunity against yellow fever for a lifetime, therefore a booster dose is not required. This issue is difficult to evaluate because there is no serological correlate of protection against yellow fever and seropositivity is defined with several cut-off points. Although studies indicate that the duration of protection after vaccination is long, many studies have demonstrated a reduction of the antibody titrer over the years. Consequently, there is more concern about people who live in endemic areas. For this reason, Brazil recommends revaccinating once at least until additional studies are performed.

It is important to know the duration of immunity induced by lower doses of YF vaccine. In our knowledge, there is a lack of clinical studies evaluating the immunity duration of the yellow fever vaccine with lower doses. This information is relevant to subsidize the routine recommendation of YF vaccine fractional dose for adults.