The 64 World Cup soccer (fotbol) matches started a week ago in 12 German cities and will continue until July 9. Three million soccer fans are expected from Europe and beyond. Three of the cities where matches will be played, Cologne, Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen, are in the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. So is a measles outbreak in children and young adults. The Ukraine is also experiencing a large measles outbreak, with case numbers exceeding 20,000 by the end of February. The Ukrainian National team qualified for the tournament and will undoubtedly have many fans there. Meanwhile nearby Austria is having a mumps outbreak concentrated in the 18 - 30 age group in southern Austria (Carinthia; via Eurosurveillance). A mumps case, in a 23 year old British fan has already been reported at the Nuremberg venue. The game is afoot.
Recently we posted on a measles outbreak in Boston traced to an Indian computer programmer who infected others in a high rise office building shortly after arrival. Measles and mumps are preventable diseases and vaccination has produced a substantial herd immunity in the European and American population. But because both diseases are quite contagious (high basic reproductive numbers, R0), the immunization coverage must also be high to prevent an outbreak. The strategy of "free-riding" that depends on others being vaccinated is risky, at best. We are also unsure how long the measles and mumps vaccines provide protection. The original view it was life-long is probably incorrect.
German public health authorities have instituted a special World Cup surveillance effort. If you want to follow a different kind of action you can find an an English language infectious disease play-by-play at a special website established by the Rudolph Koch Institute.
Comments
Interesting that I should stumble across this post. One of my wife's 62 year old classmates was diagnosed as having mumps last week, incidently exposing my wife. We are awaiting the results of a mumps antibody test, as there is a pretty good possibility that she was never vaccinated (and never had mumps as a child, apparently). The local health deptartment here (rural Central NY state) isn't quite sure how to respond, other than attempting to notify everyone that was potentially exposed, and the doctors we have talked to here don't really know much about mumps having never seen a case of it.
Posted by: just me | June 18, 2006 10:03 PM
just me: At 62 she grew up before the mumps vaccine was used. So did I and didn't "have" mumps as a child but I still had antibodies from inapparent infection. I found this out when I did a lab in public health school that involved testing our own sera for mumps antibodies (this was in the 1960s). So it will be interesting to see if she has some immunity.
We are still not sure what the longevity of the vaccine is, so we may all wind up getting booster later in life.
Posted by: revere | June 18, 2006 11:36 PM
fotbol in mouth disease... could not resist the pun...
Posted by: David | June 20, 2006 4:43 PM
revere: the test came back negative for mumps antibodies. So far, though, she has no apparent symptoms. Keeping fingers crossed for a few more days.
Posted by: just me | June 23, 2006 10:30 PM