Snijders B, van Lier E, de Kassteele J, Fanoy E, Ruijs W, Hulshof F et al. Vaccine, 2012 [Epub ahead of print]  doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2012.02.035

In this study, the authors have combined a household method and a school study design to assess VE against mumps as well as VE against mumps infectiousness by comparing secondary attack rates in households of vaccinated and unvaccinated cases.

The investigation of vaccine preventable diseases (VPD) outbreaks should be encouraged as it is a great opportunity to improve our knowledge about vaccines, to identify reasons for vaccine failure, pockets of susceptible and reasons for non-vaccination, and to improve the control of VPD through vaccination.