Measles is returning

March 1, 2008

Thanks to the anti-vaccination zealots.

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{ 2 comments }

1 Liz Ditz March 1, 2008 at 6:50 pm: The index case in the San Diego outbreak was a child who had been on vacation in Switzerland, contracted the disease there, and spread it in San Diego.

Switzerland has had “epidemic level” rates of measles since 2006.

According to SwissInfo

The current outbreak, which the health office has classed as an “epidemic”, has seen 414 infections since January, of which more than half have occurred in canton Lucerne.

According to officials, vaccination coverage in the central Swiss canton is particularly low, standing at just 78 per cent.

“In Lucerne there is a higher proportion of the population that uses alternative medicine and they tend to vaccinate less against measles,” explained Richard.
The vaccination rate in Switzerland is increasing very slowly.
Jean-Luc Richard, Federal Health Office Vaccination plan

[snip]
Switzerland is not alone in struggling to reach the WHO target. Richard says neighbours Italy, Germany and Austria are all in the same boat.

According to a WHO report published last year, registered vaccination coverage in Austria for the first MMR dose was just under 80 per cent. The same report revealed that immunisation coverage in children aged 12 to 23 months in Italy was still below 70 per cent.

Sergei Deshevoi, who specialises in measles and rubella elimination at the WHO’s European office in Copenhagen, admitted that the targets were “quite ambitious” and would take time to be met.

“Unfortunately lack of adequate immunisation coverage is still a challenge in a number of countries of the region,” he said.
2 Supremacy Claus March 2, 2008 at 8:59 am: If there were a legal basis, and a causal link could be proven, would doctors support ruinous litigation against anti-vaccination groups and individuals?

To deter.