Measles and rubella are oftentimes underestimated as being insignificant childhood diseases. However, death rates and serious long-term complications in affected people of all ages paint a different picture. The World Health Organization has adopted goals for the elimination of measles and rubella. Systematic elimination on the national level will eventually result in global elimination. To get there, every single country needs to make efforts in promoting and administering measles-mumps-rubella-containing vaccine but also in surveilling immunization rates on a regular basis. The epidemiological part of the underlying study has, for the first time in Luxembourg, applied a retrospective format based on already existing data to assess the population´s antimeasles/anti-rubella IgG seroprevalence. A pre-marital screening, mandatory in Luxembourg until 2015 for all women planning to get married, has contributed to the huge dataset, particularly in the group of women at childbearing age. To further ensure Luxembourg´s status as one of 33 European WHO member states currently classified as having eliminated both measles and rubella, an increase in vaccination efforts might be considered, particularly in certain groups at risk of being IgG negative for measles and rubella. The Luxembourg Institute of Health as WHO European Regional Reference Laboratory for Measles and Rubella is entrusted with case and outbreak confirmation, virus characterization and molecular epidemiology for WHO National Reference Laboratories in 22 countries. For these and other scientific purposes virus strains need to be isolated. However, oftentimes Measles Virus isolation seems to be less successful compared to Rubella Virus isolation. The experimental part of this study has therefore investigated methods to enhance viral infection and propagation in Vero/hSLAM cells. ; Noch immer werden Masern und Röteln häufig als harmlose Kinderkrankheiten verkannt. Mit Blick auf die Zahl der Todesfälle und die in einigen Fällen langfristigen ...