©Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The logo of the World Health Organization (WHO) is seen near its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, February 2, 2023. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
GENEVA (Reuters) – More than half of the world’s countries will be at high or very high risk of measles epidemics by the end of the year unless urgent preventative measures are taken, the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday.
Measles cases have increased in most regions, mainly due to vaccination failures during the Covid-19 years, when health systems were overwhelmed and fell behind on routine vaccinations for preventable diseases.
“What worries us is that this year, 2024, we have these big gaps in our immunization programs and if we don’t fill them very quickly with vaccine, measles will just fill that gap,” Natasha Crowcroft of the WHO. , senior technical advisor for measles and rubella, said at a news conference in Geneva.
“We can see, from the data produced together with the WHO data from the CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), that more than half of all countries in the world will be at high or very high risk of epidemics due to the end of this year.”
He called for urgent action to protect children, saying there was a “lack of commitment” from governments given competing issues such as economic crisis and conflict.
Measles is a highly contagious airborne virus that primarily affects children under five. According to the WHO, the disease can be prevented with two doses of the vaccine and more than 50 million deaths have been avoided since 2000.
According to WHO data, last year cases had already increased by 79% to more than 300,000, a number believed to represent only a fraction of the total.
Outbreaks have been reported in all WHO regions except the Americas, although Crowcroft cautioned that they were to be expected.
Mortality rates are higher in poorer countries due to weaker health systems, Crowcroft said, adding that epidemics and deaths also pose a risk to middle- and high-income countries.
“We have had many measles epidemics around the world and middle-income countries have suffered greatly. And we are worried that 2024 will look like 2019,” he said.