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Euro 2008 Epidemic Fears

German Soccer Team to Get Measles Vaccination

Germany's national soccer squad is worried about catching measles at June's Euro 2008 soccer tournament, due to an epidemic currently raging in the co-hosts Austria and Switzerland. German authorities also want mobile vaccination stations to protect fans from the disease.

While planning a trip abroad, it's always good to make sure one's vaccinations are up to date to avoid falling sick while on vacation. But for one group of travelers, the consequences of getting ill are very significant: The German national soccer team is worried about their chances at the upcoming soccer tournament Euro 2008 if they fall ill with measles during the competition.

The fears are due to an ongoing measles epidemic in Switzerland and Austria, who are co-hosting the June 7-29 tournament. Now SPIEGEL has learned that all the players on the national side, plus the team's training and support staff, will have their vaccination certificates inspected and their blood checked for anti-bodies ahead of the championship, to make sure they are not at risk of catching measles.

"Anyone who doesn't already have immunity will immediately be vaccinated," team doctor Tim Meyer told SPIEGEL. It only requires one player to fall ill, Meyer explained -- then not only would the championship be over for him, "but probably for the whole team too." The national team is meeting on May 19 for training on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

The co-host countries have been trying to bring a serious epidemic of measles under control for the last year and a half. The illness is highly infectious and can even be life-threatening.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that fans who are traveling to the tournament check to see if they have been vaccinated against measles and get vaccinated if their immunity is unclear. "There is a big worry in a stadium environment where you have 30,000 people very close to each other," said Geneva-based WHO spokeswoman Hayatee Hasan in remarks quoted by the news agency Reuters. The organizers are expecting as many as 5 million spectators at the tournament.

Health experts fear that a measles outbreak during Euro 2008 could also spread to Germany. Anyone who hasn't been vaccinated who comes into contact with an ill person has "a 100-percent chance of infection," a spokesperson from Berlin's Robert Koch Institute, Germany's central federal institution responsible for disease control and prevention, told SPIEGEL.

German authorities are calling for measures such as mobile vaccination stations in front of the football stadiums, so that fans can at least get a one-off dose of the measles vaccine before a game. Normally two shots are needed for complete protection against the disease.

Not everyone is in favor of mobile vaccination stations, however. A spokesperson for Switzerland's Federal Office of Public Health told SPIEGEL that such stations would be bad for the image of the football tournament. "The sight would just scare people off," he said.

An outbreak of measles in the German state of Baden-Württemberg caused alarm in April. Over 200 cases were reported and some schools in the state only let children who could prove they had been vaccinated come to class.

Health experts are concerned about falling measles vaccination rates in Germany. Around one-quarter of young people in Germany are not sufficiently vaccinated against measles, health experts say, making them vulnerable to infection if the measles virus is brought in from abroad.

Many German parents choose not to have their children vaccinated due to fears of side effects from the shot. Some even prefer to get their kids infected with the disease at measle parties in order to get the illness over and done with in early childhood.

dgs/spiegel/reuters