Measles Cases Surge Globally, Sparking Alarm At WHO

Eko Hot Blog reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) voiced concern on Tuesday over the rapid spread of measles, with more than 306,000 cases reported worldwide in 2022 a 79% increase from the previous year.

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“We in the measles world are extremely concerned,” said Natasha Crowcroft, a WHO technical adviser on measles and rubella.

Measles is a highly contagious, serious airborne disease caused by a virus that can lead to severe complications and death. It majorly affects children.

Crowcroft stressed that measles cases are typically “dramatically under-reported,” and the real number was surely far higher.

To get more accurate figures, the WHO models the numbers each year, with its latest estimate indicating there were 9.2 million cases and 136,216 measles deaths in 2022.

“This year is going to be very challenging,” Crowcroft told journalists in Geneva via video link from Cairo. She warned that over half of all countries globally are currently at high risk of measles outbreaks by the end of 2023.

A major cause of the swelling numbers is the “backsliding immunization coverage,” Crowcroft said. At least 95% of children need to be fully vaccinated against measles in a locality to prevent outbreaks, but global vaccination rates have slipped to 83%.

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There is great inequity in the distribution of cases and deaths. Crowcroft pointed out that 92% of all children who die from measles live among less than a quarter of the global population, mainly in very low-income countries.

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