LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Live vaccinations provided to children who previously received liver or kidney transplants were found to be safe and prompted an immune response to guard against several life-threatening conditions, according to a newly published study.

The findings could enable more at-risk children to be protected from measles, mumps, and chicken pox, said experts at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Children's Hospital Colorado on Monday.

In this cohort study of 281 pediatric liver and kidney transplant recipients from 18 U.S. transplant centers, no serious adverse events were observed following live vaccination, with the majority of children developing protective antibodies.

The results are important because the rates of measles, mumps and the varicella-zoster virus that causes chicken pox are rising nationally and internationally, leaving immunocompromised children at risk for life-threatening conditions, according to Lara Danziger-Isakov, senior author of the study, published in JAMA Network Open.