Yellow fever breakthrough infections after yellow fever vaccination: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Yellow fever vaccination is considered to provide effective long-term immunity. However, yellow fever breakthrough infections in vaccinated patients have been reported. In this systematic review and meta-analysis we aimed to identify and summarise all documented symptomatic yellow fever breakthrough infections in the literature occurring less than 10 years and 10 years or more after primary yellow fever vaccination. METHODS: We searched MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), and Global Index Medicus for records published between Jan 1, 1936 (introduction of yellow fever vaccination) and June 16, 2023. We included prospective and retrospective cohort studies, case series and reports, and epidemiological reports from national and international health organisations reporting symptomatic yellow fever among individuals vaccinated 30 days or more before symptom onset. We excluded cases vaccinated less than 30 days before symptom onset. The primary outcome for the meta-analysis was the proportions of vaccinees among virologically confirmed and probable cases of yellow fever (IgM seroconversion without seroconversion to other flaviviruses). Risk of bias was assessed with an adapted version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Records of moderate or good quality (probable or confirmed yellow fever diagnosis with documented proof of previous vaccination) were included for random-effects meta-analysis. This systematic review and meta-analysis is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42023450205. FINDINGS: After reviewing 1975 records, 37 records reported a total of 6951 yellow fever cases, of which 537 were vaccinated. 31 records were of low quality. Nine confirmed and 24 probable cases with proof of previous yellow fever vaccination were identified, all from Brazil. Confirmed cases were vaccinated 3 months to 3 years before symptom onset; of these patients two fell severely ill and died. The pooled proportion of verified yellow fever breakthrough infections among probable and confirmed cases was 3% (95% CI 1-19%). No confirmed yellow fever breakthrough infections were identified occurring 10 years or more after yellow fever vaccination. INTERPRETATION: Yellow fever breakthrough infections documented in literature are rare, and not necessarily more common 10 years or more after primary yellow fever vaccination. This finding suggests that a single dose of yellow fever vaccination is sufficient to provide lifelong protective immunity against symptomatic yellow fever. FUNDING: None.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.032 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.018 | 0.040 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".