Nov. 14 (UPI) — Measles is making a comeback, with cases up more than 20% across the globe to more than 10.3 million over the last year, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday.
Numbers could have been much higher had it not been for vaccinations, however.
“Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “To save even more lives and stop this deadly virus from harming the most vulnerable, we must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live.”
But the numbers are beginning to slide in a negative direction as more people shun vaccinations. This past year, 107,500 people, mostly young children, died from a disease that’s preventable through vaccination, the health groups said in the report.
Health officials called that an “unacceptable” death toll.
The virus is highly contagious and can be lethal, but it is preventable with two doses of measles vaccine. One dose is 93% effective against measles, and two doses are 97% effective.
Health officials say because it spreads so easily, 95% of a population needs to be vaccinated to guard against the spread.
Measles had been eliminated from 82 countries in the past half century, but lack of access to vaccines and misinformation about their safety has caused the upward trend in cases. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a global decline in the number of people getting standard vaccinations, not just for the measles.
Measles vaccination rates still have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, leaving people, especially children under the age of 5, vulnerable to the virus and the threats it poses, including deafness and death.
“We’re talking about a lot of children who are dying from measles every year from a disease that’s entirely preventable,” Natasha Crowcroft, the WHO’s senior technical adviser for measles and rubella, said during a press conference to discuss Thursday’s report, which was published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC’s online journal.
In 2023, 83% of children globally received their first dose of measles vaccine, but only 74% got their second one. Those vaccination rates are too low to keep the virus from spreading, officials said.
At least 22 million children who should have received a measles vaccine last year did not receive even a single dose, according to the report.
Health officials are working to continue educating people globally about the disease and effectiveness of the vaccine.
