Officials in Japan are on high alert after a small outbreak of measles in Ibaraki Prefecture and Tokyo, with the situation taking on more urgency now that travel in and out of the country is returning to pre-pandemic levels.
The latest three cases are evidence of how contagious measles can be, as it appears to have spread among strangers riding the same shinkansen for less than three hours.
Among the infected patients is a man in his 30s who lives in Ibaraki Prefecture. The man developed a fever, cough and rash on April 21 to 23 after returning from a trip to India. Leaving Kobe on April 23, he took a shinkansen to Tokyo. He was diagnosed with measles on April 27 in Ibaraki.