The need to consider ‘routine’ immunisation as part of travel health vaccinations has been demonstrated recently with measles.

An outbreak north of New York made international news in March 2019 when it was declared a state of emergency, with over 150 known cases. This followed more than 200 cases in New York City over the 2018-19 winter. The outbreaks were thought mainly to originate via unvaccinated travellers returning from countries where outbreaks were occurring, despite those countries having vaccination policies in place.1,2

England experienced 913 confirmed measles cases in the first 10 months of 2018, significantly up on the 259-laboratory-confirmed cases in 2017, and mainly travel-associated. UK outbreaks since October 2017 “are all linked to ongoing large outbreaks in Europe” said the NHS.3,4

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) noted there had been 35 measles fatalities across the EU in 2018. As at January 2019, the highest measles case counts were in Romania (261), Italy (165), Poland (133) and France (124), with “notable increases” in Italy, Poland, France and Austria.5,6