Global measles cases surged by more than 20 per cent to an estimated 10.3 million last year, the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. About 107,500 people, mostly young children, died — an “unacceptable” death toll from a disease that’s preventable through vaccination, the health groups said.
The increase in cases is driven by falling levels of vaccination. Measles can be deadly and debilitating, but it is preventable with two doses of the highly effective measles vaccine. One dose is 93 per cent effective against measles, and two doses is 97 per cent effective.
The virus had been completely eliminated from 82 countries in the last 50 years, but lack of access to vaccines and misinformation about vaccine safety has caused the world to backslide. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a global decline in the number of people getting even standard vaccinations. Measles is so highly contagious that 95 per cent of the community needs to be fully vaccinated to offer some protection to the unvaccinated, including children too young to be vaccinated.
Globally, about 83 per cent of children got their first dose of the measles vaccine in 2023 and only 74 per cent got their recommended second dose, the health organizations said. There were more than 22 million children who missed getting vaccinated altogether. In the US, a dip in measles vaccination rates among kindergartners meant that coverage has been well below .