1887
Outbreak report Open Access
Like 0
This item has no PDF Download

Abstract

At the end of May 2003, the Marseilles Hospital Centre’s virology laboratory informed the French public heath institute of 5 cases of confirmed measles among young adults living in Marseilles. An investigation was conducted, consulting different community and hospital health services, to determine the virus circulation in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) region by the southern interregional epidemiological cell. The investigation identified 259 cases: 183 clinical, 74 serologically confirmed and 2 epidemiologically linked cases. The first cases were identified during the first six months of 2003, with a peak in April. This outbreak of measles in the PACA region was favoured by poor vaccination coverage, which created groups of susceptible population. The real number of cases was probably higher than the number identified. This investigation has outlined the limitations of the measles surveillance system in France: the sentinel network had not detected any case for this period. France needs to reach the WHO objective of measles elimination by 2010 and the surveillance tools used must be those already used in the most countries that are furthest advanced in the elimination process. To reach this goal, the Direction Générale de la Santé has nominated a working group to be in charge of proposing a national plan to interrupt indigenous measles transmission in France.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/10.2807/esm.10.01.00515-en
2005-01-01
2024-10-13
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/10.2807/esm.10.01.00515-en
Loading
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/eurosurveillance/10/1/art00515-en.htm?itemId=/content/10.2807/esm.10.01.00515-en&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah
Submit comment
Close
Comment moderation successfully completed
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error