An ongoing measles outbreak in Italy has resulted in over 4,400 cases and three deaths reported in 20 regions from January to August 2017, according to the Eurosurveillance online journal.

The report noted that 88% of the cases were unvaccinated, with the highest incidence in infants below one year of age.

A total of 43% of the cases required hospitalisation.

Measles is targeted for elimination in Italy as in the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region. However, Italy remains one of the 14 countries in the region with ongoing endemic transmission.

In January 2017, the Italian National Health detected an increase in the number of measles cases reported to the national measles and rubella integrated surveillance system, compared with previous months and years.

Apart from the fact that 88.3% of the cases were unvaccinated, a further 6.5% had received only one dose of measles-containing vaccine.

Only 1.6% were fully vaccinated and 3.6% had received an unknown number of doses.

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