Epidemiology of measles outbreaks in Qatar in 2007

While a major reduction in morbidity and mortality from measles has been achieved in Qatar since it adopted the measles elimination programme in 1997, the country has experienced small, recurrent measles outbreaks. The aim of this study was to determine the demographical and epidemiological characteristics of measles cases reported to the surveillance programme in Qatar in 2007. Of 362 confirmed cases 67.7% were among children aged 1-14 years old and 16.9% were > 15 years. A majority of cases were unvaccinated [35.9%] or had unknown or undocumented vaccination status [47.0%]. The high proportion of cases were among Pakistani nationals [39.5%] followed by Qataris 927.6%]. Measles outbreaks were concentrated among the children of expatriates of Asian ethnicity with unknown vaccination status. This highlights the importance of achieving uniformly high levels of vaccination coverage in a community

Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding cervical cancer and screening among women visiting primary health care in Qatar

There are no data on the knowledge, attitude and practices of Qatari women about this cancer. Therefore this cross-sectional interview-based study was conducted in 2008 among 500 women at 5 randomly selected primary health care centres in Qatar to determine their knowledge, attitude and practices regarding cervical cancer and screening. Just over 85% had heard of cervical cancer and 76% had heard about the Pap smear. Knowledge of cervical cancer was significantly greater among women aged 30-49 years, and those employed, married for > 15 years, with a university degree, or who had had 4 births or 3 miscarriages. Almost 40% had had a Pap smear test at least once and 85.5% of the rest would have a test if they were told that the procedure was painless and simple. Over half wanted the test to be done in the well-woman clinic at the primary health care centre. Knowledge and practice was inadequate among those under 30 years old, those recently married and those with a lower education level