With the beginning of the new school year, some Swiss cantons are reporting cases of measles in children, requiring quarantines. This is what’s happening.
So far, cases have been reported in Lucerne and Aargau, with the health authorities in the latter canton imposing quarantines on unvaccinated students and teachers.
More cases in these and other regions are expected to be detected, officials said.
As they do every time measles outbreaks are detected in Switzerland, this time too health authorities are issuing warnings about this “highly contagious viral disease.”
“It is enough for an infected but not yet ill person to be in a room two hours previously for an unvaccinated person to become infected,” Simon Ming, spokesperson for the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), said after the latest cases were reported.
Not enough immunisations
The disease could have been eradicated long ago if everyone in Switzerland were vaccinated against meastles, FOPH pointed out.
However, the immunisation rate for measles in Switzerland is 95 percent for the first dose, recommended at nine months, and only 91 percent for the booster short as 12 months.
Also, the vaccination rate is lower in some regions than in others.
In Lucerne, for instance, where the most recent cases were reported, the vaccination rate among children and adolescents is below the Swiss average.
On the other hand, “French- and Italian-speaking cantons tend to have higher vaccine coverage across the board, not just for measles,” said Michael Deml, researcher at the Infectious Diseases Department of the Kantonsspital in Basel-Country.
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Vaccination conspiracies abound
According to health officials, anti-vax campaigners “spread the long-refuted claim that the measles vaccine can cause autism, or describe measles as a harmless childhood disease” – claims that prevent many parents from immunising their children.
However, as is the case for other vaccines, immunisations against measles is not compulsory in Switzerland, leaving the choice of whether or not to vaccinate up to parents.
READ ALSO: Why vaccinations are not mandatory in Switzerland
