Overall decrease of measles cases in the EU/EEA – but caseload remains high in some countries

During the month of June, a total of 1 054 cases of measles were reported across seventeen countries in the EU/EEA, which is a decrease from the 1467 cases reported during the month of May. Five countries continued to report generally high case counts but with a decreasing trend from the previous month - Italy (260), France (181), Greece (155), Germany (90), and United Kingdom (89). Slovakia however reported a marked increase with 72 cases, compared to 18 cases in May. Romania reported 111 cases, which is an increase from the 100 cases reported in May.

Looking at the situation over the past year (1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018), 13 234 cases of measles were reported across 29 EU/EEA Member States. The most cases were reported by Italy (3 341), Greece (3 193), France (2 740) and Romania (1 354), accounting respectively for 25%, 24%, 21% and 10% of all cases reported by EU/EEA countries.

Of 13 233 cases with known age, 3 924 (30%) were children less than five years of age, while 6 796 (51%) were aged 15 years or older.

Measles continues to spread across Europe because vaccination coverage in many countries is suboptimal. Only four EU/EEA countries reported figures of at least 95% vaccination coverage, for both doses of measles-containing vaccine for 2017. If the goal of eliminating measles is to be reached, vaccination coverage for children and adults needs to increase in a number of countries.