Prevalence of Inadequate Immunity to Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Varicella in MLB and NBA Athletes

Abstract

These results can inform the development of future screening programs to prevent outbreaks of viral infections in professional athletes.

Tetanus Vaccination Status and Vaccine Hesitancy in Amateur Basketball Players (Italy, 2020)

“…Second, the relatively scarce evidence that has been made available is generally focused on professional athletes, while our study specifically addressed KAP from amateur athletes [17,23,37]. Not only are professional athletes routinely screened by an SP for a series of communicable disorders, paying particular attention to the higher risk for severe infections in professional athletes compared with the general population, but also their teams can use economic leverage on hesitant players [18]. For example: recently, some professional basketball players accepted SARS-CoV-2 immunization after initial and considerable resistance when their parent teams were allowed to withhold their salary in cases of games missed due to vaccination mandates (in several states, such as California, unvaccinated individuals are not allowed to participate in mass gatherings and such requirement also extend to athletes) [19,20].…”

“…Third, the majority of available studies on sport teams have been performed in the USA, where a significant share of professional and collegiate athletes comes from ethnic minorities, which have a long history of mistrust towards federal health-related interventions, including vaccinations [17,23,36,38,[42][43][44]. Fourth, the evidence collected to date on vaccine acceptance and immunization rates in athletes was gathered on immunizations such as seasonal influenza vaccine, measles or even varicella, i.e., disorders with a significant direct inter-human spread [17,18,36,38,[42][43][44]. As tetanus is a non-communicable infectious disease [1,2], the comparisons may be therefore quite misleading.…”

“…Some previous reports from United States have pointed out that both professional and amateur (including collegiate) athletes may be affected by inadequate vaccination rates and significant vaccine hesitancy, particularly among basketball players (BPs), and the causes still remain unclear [17,18]. For example, in a sample including 98 professional athletes, with 36 of them being professional BPs, the risks for inadequate immunity to varicella and rubella were 4 and 6 times higher, respectively, than in a general age-matched population [18]. More recently, the vaccination campaigns for SARS-CoV-2 also have faced substantial resistance among professional BPs [19,20].…”

Primary Care Considerations for the Baseball Athlete

“…In addition to infection control strategies, vaccination plays a pivotal role in preventing infectious diseases, yet there is no established vaccination or immune screening protocol in major league baseball. In fact, one study found that 33.5% of MLB and 33.3% of NBA athletes were not immune to at least one of the viruses tested, which included measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella [23].…”