To the editor: We thank Mandal et al. for their letter in response to our paper. Firstly we would like to point out that most the concerns raised are due to the fact that our article was a preliminary report, which was also stated in the title. It was intended to rapidly inform about an outbreak of measles affecting European and non-European citizens that was ongoing at the time of publication and to alert public health, clinical and laboratory experts in various countries of the possibility of cases among people who had been on the cruise. In fact, most of those concerns are being addressed in the on-going investigation.