Measles Outbreak in a Community With Very Low Vaccine Coverage, theNetherlands

xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> Measles Outbreak in a Community With Very Low Vaccine Coverage, the Netherlands

There is nothing in this article that gives evidence for measles “severity”, only measles “incidence”.  - SM

“According to the researchers, the findings highlight the fact that “measles disease is severe, even in an industrialized country.  Vaccination is the most effective means of preventing the disease and its complications.”

 

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July 11, 2001

 

“Measles Outbreak in a Community With Very Low Vaccine Coverage, the Netherlands” Emerging Infectious Diseases Online (www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid)

(06/01) Vol. 7, No. 3,; Van den Hof, Susan; Meffre, Christine

M.A.; Conyn-van Spaendonck, Marina

In 1999, a measles outbreak in the Netherlands began in an orthodox reformed elementary school.  Nearly 3,300 cases of measles were recorded by May 2000, primarily affecting unvaccinated persons from orthodox reformed communities.  Although national vaccine coverage for two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is 96 percent, 6 percent of the country’s 539 municipalities had coverage of less than 90 percent for the first dose of MMR in 1999; those 34 municipalities include clusters of orthodox reformed communities that largely reject vaccinations for religious reasons.  Vaccine coverage in the school was just 7 percent, and the overall measles attack rate—including 213 clinical cases among 255 students and 327 family members—was 37 percent.  The attack rate among susceptible students was 91 percent.  According to the researchers, the findings highlight the fact that “measles disease is severe, even in an industrialized country.  Vaccination is the most effective means of preventing the disease and its complications.”

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