Authors reply: measles on the cruise ship: links with virus spreading into an emergency department in Southern Italy.

The Italian Ministry of Health has to date identified 29 confirmed cases of measles that occurred between 20 February and 10 March 2014 on the cruise ship in question. Of them, 23 were crew members and six were Italian passengers (data for non-Italian passengers are not available). These include three cases in addition to those reported before [2], one passenger with disease onset on 27 February and two crew members with onset on 1 and 10 March. Seven of the 29 confirmed cases developed symptoms at home after returning from the cruise. These cases included a young child (passenger) from Lazio, a young child (passenger) from Umbria, an adult passenger from Sardinia who needed admission to an intensive care unit, two cases from Lecce (an adult passenger and a crew member), an adult passenger from Bari, and the teenage passenger from Brindisi reported by Cozza et al [1].