Monthly measles and rubella monitoring report, February 2018

Surveillance report
Publication series: Monthly measles and rubella monitoring report
Time period covered: 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017
Cite:

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Monthly measles and rubella monitoring report, February 2018. Stockholm: ECDC; 2018 

ECDC reports on routine measles and rubella surveillance data submitted by 30 EU/EEA countries to the European Surveillance System (TESSy) on a monthly basis. This report is based on surveillance data reported to TESSy for 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017. ECDC also monitors European measles outbreaks through epidemic intelligence and publishes the most recent updates monthly in the Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR).

Measles cases in the EU treble in 2017, outbreaks still ongoing

Measles outbreaks continue to occur in a number of EU/EEA countries, and there is a risk of spread and sustained transmission in areas with susceptible populations.

In 2017, 14 451 measles cases were reported to the European Surveillance System by 30 EU/EEA countries according to ECDC’s monthly measles and rubella monitoring report published today, which provides a short overview on measles data for 2017. This number is over three times the number of cases reported in 2016 (4 643).

According to more recent data published in ECDC’s Communicable Disease Threat Report (CDTR), obtained through epidemic intelligence, the highest number of measles cases to date in the EU since 1 January 2017 were in Romania (10 623), Italy (4 991), Greece (1 463) and Germany (926). This increase was due to a number of outbreaks in EU countries – some of which are still taking place, such as those in France, the UK and Sweden.

Publication data