Eliminating measles in Europe by 2010 may be difficult, study suggests
Taken from Cordis News Date: 2009-01-07
A large-scale study of measles in 32 European countries, conducted by the EU-funded vaccination surveillance network EUVAC.NET, has brought to light more than 12,000 cases of the disease between 2006 and 2007, mostly in unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated children.
The countries most affected were the UK, Germany, Italy, Romania and Switzerland. Increased measles transmissions were seen in the beginning of 2008, notably in the UK, Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
The data, published in the journal The Lancet, has major implications for the World Health Organization's (WHO) goal of eliminating measles in Europe by 2010. The results also highlight the potential for strains of the virus to be exported from Europe to countries with substandard healthcare, where fatality rates are substantially higher.