The study, published by international medical journal The Lancet and co-funded by the European Commission, claims that "measles persists in Europe despite the incorporation of the measles vaccine into routine childhood vaccination programmes more than twenty years ago".
These findings raise "serious doubts" that the EU and the World Health Organisation (WHO) can achieve their goal of eliminating the disease from Europe by 2010, the study argues.
The study, compiled by the EUVAC.NET group, analysed measles data in 32 European countries over the 2006-2007 period. It found over 12,000 cases of the disease, 85% of which were in five European countries: Germany, Italy, Romania, Switzerland and the UK.
The report expresses concern that in certain areas, vaccination levels have fallen below expectations, stating: "High measles incidence in some European countries revealed suboptimum vaccination coverage." For example, outbreaks of measles remained high among religious objectors in the Dutch Bible Belt and the highly mobile and unvaccinated Sinti and Roma communities in Romania.
The solution, according to the report, requires countries to "identify and monitor specific obstacles to measles elimination and design appropriate responses".
Commenting on the findings, immunology experts Jacques Kremer and Claude Muller of Luxembourg's Laboratoire National de Santé (CRP) said there was clear "room for improvement" if Europe is to avoid a "potentially embarrassing" situation of a measles virus originating from the continent triggering "large outbreaks and high measles mortality" in developing countries.
The key risk, according to Kremer and Muller, is that Europe could export measles to "countries with poor health systems and high fatality rates," noting that "importations of the measles virus from Europe have already triggered several outbreaks in South America".
"Rich countries need to be responsible," they argued, so that "resource-poor countries" need "not worry about re-introductions from Europe".
"Maintenance of optimum vaccination coverage and improved surveillance are the cornerstones of the measles elimination plan for Europe," the report concluded.
