AUTORES: Paul A. Rota,1 Kevin Brown,2 Annette Mankertz,3 Sabine Santibanez,3 Sergey Shulga,4 Claude P. Muller,5 Judith M. Hu¨bschen,5 Marilda Siqueira,6 Jennifer Beirnes,7 Hinda Ahmed,8 Henda Triki,9 Suleiman Al-Busaidy,10 Annick Dosseh,11 Charles Byabamazima,12 Sheilagh Smit,13 Chantal Akoua-Koffi,14 Josephine Bwogi,15 Henry Bukenya,15 Niteen Wairagkar,16 Nalini Ramamurty,16 Patcha Incomserb,17 Sirima Pattamadilok,17 Youngmee Jee,18 Wilina Lim,19 Wenbo Xu,20 Katsuhiro Komase,21 Makoto Takeda,21 Thomas Tran,22 Carlos Castillo-Solorzano,23 Paul Chenoweth,1 David Brown,2 Mick N. Mulders,24 William J. Bellini,1 and David Featherstone25; AFILIAÇÃO - 1World Health Organization (WHO) Global Specialized Laboratory, Atlanta, Georgia; 2WHO Global Specialized Laboratory, WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, European Region, London, United Kingdom; 3WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, European Region, Berlin, Germany; 4WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, European Region, Moscow, Russian Federation; 5WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, European Region, Luxembourg; 6WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Region of the Americas, Rio De Janiero, Brazil; 7WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Region of the Americas, Winnipeg, Canada; 8WHO Regional Office, Eastern Mediterranean Region, Cairo, Egypt; 9WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Eastern Mediterranean Region, Tunis, Tunisia; 10WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Eastern Mediterranean Region, Muscat, Oman; 11WHO Regional Office, African Region, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; 12WHO Regional Office, African Region, Harare, Zimbabwe; 13WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, African Region, Johannesburg, South Africa; 14WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, African Region, Abidjan, Cote d'Ivorie; 15WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, African Region, Entebbe, Uganda; 16WHO Regional Office Southeast Asian Region, Delhi, India; 17WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Southeast Asian Region, Bangkok, Thailand; 18WHO Regional Office, Western Pacific Region, Manila, Philippines; 19WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Western Pacific Region, Hong Kong; 20WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Western Pacific Region, Beijing, China; 21WHO Global Specialized Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan; 22WHO Regional Reference Laboratory, Western Pacific Region, Victoria, Australia; 23WHO Regional Office, Region of the Americas, Washington, D.C; 24WHO Regional Office, European Region, Copenhagen, Denmark; and 25WHO Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland.A critical component of laboratory surveillance for measles is the genetic characterization of circulating wild-type viruses. The World Health Organization (WHO) Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network (LabNet), provides for standardized testing in 183 countries and supports genetic characterization of currently circulating strains of measles viruses. The goal of this report is to describe the lessons learned from nearly 20 years of virologic surveillance for measles, to describe the global databases for measles sequences, and to provide regional updates about measles genotypes detected by recent surveillance activities. Virologic surveillance for measles is now well established in all of the WHO regions, and most countries have conducted at least some baseline surveillance. The WHO Global Genotype Database contains >7000 genotype reports, and the Measles Nucleotide Surveillance (MeaNS) contains >4000 entries. This sequence information has proven to be extremely useful for tracking global transmission patterns and for documenting the interruption of transmission in some countries. The future challenges will be to develop quality control programs for molecular methods and to continue to expand virologic surveillance activities in all regions.2030-01-01