The Austrian city of Klagenfurt indefinitely suspended its bus services Wednesday after a case of measles was detected in one of the drivers.
“All bus traffic is suspended until further notice in order to prevent infection,” the city’s KMG public transport operator announced.
The company runs all public transport in the southern city of 100,000 inhabitants, which is also the state capital of Carinthia.
It took the unusual measure after it was revealed that one driver had been diagnosed with measles on 3 April.
Since then two further suspected cases have been reported.
The #measles crisis in #Europe continues to swell, driven by #vaccine refusal.
So far in 2018:
Romania: 2712 conf'ed cases w/22 deaths
France: 2173 w/1 dead
Greece: 1948 w/2 dead
Italy: 805 w/4 dead
Czech Rep:103
UK: 440
Austria: 43
Germany: 176
Ireland: 72
Portugal: 111
MORE— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) June 6, 2018
KMG said it was working to establish “the vaccination status of all drivers” before authorising bus services to restart and was embarking on a deep clean of its vehicles.
The resurgence of measles, a once-eradicated and highly-contagious disease, is linked to a growing anti-vaccine movement in richer nations — which the World Health Organization has identified as a major global health threat.
On Tuesday, New York mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency in parts of the city, ordering all residents of certain districts in Brooklyn to be vaccinated to fight a measles outbreak concentrated in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
Measles immunization 💉 rates (% of children ages 12-23 months, in 2014)
🇲🇦 Morocco 99%
🇺🇸 USA 91%
🇦🇴 Angola 85%
🇦🇹 Austria 76%
🇹🇩 Chad 54%
🇸🇴 Somalia 46%
🇸🇸 South Sudan 22%Between 2000 and 2014, measles vaccination prevented 17.1 M deaths https://t.co/x1jwEpiDSZ pic.twitter.com/mlfpwOKEuM
— Bassam Sebti (@bsebti) February 12, 2018
More on the Subject
Measles is an airborne infection causing fever, coughing and rashes that can be deadly in rare cases.
It is more contagious than tuberculosis or Ebola, yet is easily preventable with a vaccine that costs pennies.
The U.N. says worldwide cases of measles jumped by more than 30 percent in 2017, and infections continued to rise last year.
Just 10 countries were responsible for the surge in cases in 2018, according to the U.N. children’s agency.
While most of the countries that experienced large spikes in cases are beset by unrest or conflict, several wealthier nations also saw their caseloads soar.
