‘A global measles crisis’ is well underway, UN agency chiefs warn

Noting a 300 percent surge in the number of measles cases during the first three months of this year, compared to the same period last year, two UN agency heads declared that we now stand “in the middle of a global measles crisis”.

“Cases have soared across the world, including in places where measles had previously been eliminated, like the United States”, asserted Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Measles is almost entirely preventable through two doses of a safe and effective vaccine, despite being highly contagious. The UN agency chiefs painted “an alarming picture” of the rate of infection, saying that “by the time you finish reading this, we estimate that at least 40 people – most of them children – will be infected by this fast-moving, life-threatening disease”.

Following two years of consecutive increases, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Philippines, Sudan, Thailand and Ukraine, are all in the midst of current outbreaks. It is also spreading fast among clusters of people, who are resisting vaccination, in countries with high overall vaccination rates, including the United States, Israel, Thailand and Tunisia.

“It is a collective responsibility to support parents and build a more positive environment for vaccination, on and offline”, the UNICEF and WHO chiefs said.

For their part, WHO and UNICEF, are working with other partners, such as the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private partnership known as Gavi, to ensure that vaccines reach more people in more countries than ever before.

Original source: UN News
Published on 15 April 2019