Large measles outbreak in Geneva, Switzerland, January to August 2011: descriptive epidemiology and demonstration of quarantine effectiveness.

Delaporte E, Wyler Lazarevic CA, Iten A, Sudre P. Euro Surveill. 2013;18(6):pii=20395

 

ECDC comment:

In this outbreak, compliance to quarantine of non-immunised relatives, close contacts and classmates was good and the measure was well accepted. Therefore, although the secondary attack rate among unvaccinated household members was high,  no transmission outside their own families occurred and the authors documented a 95% reduction in the risk of community transmission.

Another point raised by this article is the situation in neighbouring countries with citizens commuting between the countries. The movement of people, together with the inevitalbe accumulation of non-immune persons for different reasons (fear of side effects, neglicence, etc…) makes elimination a common European issue and not possible to be addressed with a national strategy only.