Pressroom

Source: Guardian (United Kingdom)

04/18/2012

Soccer fans traveling to Ukraine for the European Championships in June should get vaccinated against measles in their home countries, according to the nation’s health officials. Ukraine had a measles outbreak last month in western areas of the country that border Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The country is hosting the soccer event along with Poland. “The situation with measles is unfavorable in our country,” Oleksandr Kravchuk, deputy head of the state sanitary and epidemiological service, is quoted as saying in the Kiev Post. More than 5,000 cases were registered in the measles outbreak, the European Center of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported. “The epidemic is expected to accelerate and spread geographically during the peak transmission season for measles from February to June,” the ECDC said.