Background
: In Korea, the law reguires submission of immunization certificate to elementary school on admission since 2001 in order to prevent measles outbreaks such as those that occurred in the year 2000 and 2001. As a result, the submission rate of immunization certificate has been almost 99%. To that effect it seems to have been a very successful policy. But the validity and accuracy of such certificates have not been guestioned. This study aimed to assess the validity of the measles immunization certificates and general practitioners' perception of the law to submit immunization certificate.

Methods : A postal survey was conducted from April to May 2005 among general practitioners who were pediatricians and family physicians. The main questions were the method to confirm childrens' past vaccination and the proportion of doing booster vaccination, and also their opinions on governments' policy to extend the submission of immunization certificate on school admission.

Results : The total study subjects were 840. The proportion of issued immunization certificates based on exact vaccination records or booster vaccination was 98.7%. The opinions concerning the law to submit immunization certificates were: very necessary (88.8%), and should include all children basic immunization (62.8%). On the other hand, the most common reason against the law was that they did not feel the necessity (31.4%).

Conclusion : The validity of immunization certificates was very high. The opinions concerning the law to submit immunization certificates were favorable in most subjects. And mutual understanding between the general practitioners and the government is in demand before the law to submit immunization certificates becomes effect.

Background
: An outbreak of measles was reported again in 2000 nationwide. For that reason, research was done to evaluated the necessity of relevant re-vaccination and efficacy of primary vaccination of MMR when measles was prevalent, by way of comparative study for serological test results of the patients hospitalized at SAMSUN HOSPITAL in Busan in 2000.

Methods : From Jan to Dec 2000, we reviewed 108 cases with medical history confirmed as measles by clinical and serological examination and checked whether inoculation of primary vaccination of MMR was done or not and the date of vaccination through telephone survey, separated. The study subjects were into two groups, vaccinated, and unvaccinated, and antibody of measles were checked according to sex, season and age.

Results : It was observed that a great number of people caught measles in May-June comprising 56 case (58.3%) among 108 cases analyzed and the wide range of an attack of measles was under two years of age with 37 cases(34.3%) under on year of age and 33 cases (30.6%) between 1-2 year old.

Conclusion : According to the results of serum diagnosis of the measles case study, vaccination for measle is needed at the age of 6 month to one year because all those under on year of age who had not received a vaccine contacted the disease. The importance of booster was raised for those above 3 years old because those who had prior vaccination against measles contacted the disease.