Uptick in measles cases mostly localised around one Porto hospital where some health professionals appear to have neglected their vaccination regimes.
ADVERTISEMENTPortugal has an outbreak of measles with 70 cases as of Sunday. Of those 70 at least 24 have been cured, but there are still 148 suspected or investigated cases that have proved negative. There are no hospitalized patients.
Perhaps surprisingly, most cases were registered in health professionals, usually with a work link to the Santo António hospital in Porto. Another 29 cases remain under investigation.
All patients were adults, 14% were not vaccinated and 9% had incomplete vaccination regimes.
According to data released this week by the Ministry of Health, more than three-quarters of measles positive cases from the current outbreak are from health professionals. Around a fifth of these had not taken the recommended two doses of the vaccine.
[This article was corrected on 29/03/2018 to state that one fifth of affected medical staff had not had two vaccine shots, rather than two thirds.]