Measles is back with revenge, killed 200,000 in 2019

A new report from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights a grim reality: Measles, a highly contagious but vaccine-preventable viral disease, has infected at least 860,000 people and killed more than 200,000 worldwide in 2019, or about a 50% increase in the number of deaths compared to 2016. Unfortunately, the covid-19 pandemic is likely to make the situation worse.

Following the invention of a measles vaccine in the 1960s, annual cases surged. In the United States, the establishment of a national vaccination program against childhood diseases led to the local elimination of measles in 2000. In 2016, cases reached an all-time high worldwide, leaving hope that it could be eradicated everywhere in the near future. But since those optimistic days, things have deteriorated sharply, especially in Europe.

While there were only 5,000 documented cases in Europe in 2016, the next year seen over 21,000. In 2019, progress slipped so badly that the UK and several other countries lost their without measles WHO statute. In the same year, relatively large measles outbreaks in the United States – triggered by travelers returning from countries where the disease was not contained –almost driven with its status being also stripped. Even still, the more than 1,200 cases documented by the United States in 2019 were more than they had seen since the early 1990s.

Worldwide, according to new CDC / WHO report released As of Thursday, there were 869,770 documented cases of measles in 2019, the highest annual number since 1996. Many measles cases go unreported, so the actual number is higher – some 9 million in total, according to the report. . He also estimated that there were more than 207,500 deaths in 2019. That’s half of the estimated death toll in 2000, but a huge jump from the 140,000 estimated deaths in 2018. Most deaths from measles occur in children under the age of five.

These increases could be seen around the world, but the outbreaks were particularly large and uncontrolled in Africa and Europe. The only two countries to achieve local elimination for the first time in 2019 were Iran and Sri Lanka. And while there are significant regional differences as to why cases have increased, the underlying reason is the same.

“In all WHO regions, the root cause of the resurgence was the failure of vaccination, both in recent years and in recent years, causing immune deficiencies in young people and some older age groups. The authors of the report wrote.

Because measles is so contagious, it takes a very high vaccination rate to prevent it from spreading within communities once it arrives – somewhere around 95 percent. The vaccine currently in use for measles, a vaccine combination that also protects against mumps and rubella, requires two doses, further complicating compliance. Added to this is the anti-vaccination movement, which has contributed growing mistrust of vaccines in the United States and elsewhere.

So far, measles cases in 2020 around the world do not appear to be as high as they were last year, possibly due in part to increased physical distancing due to the covid pandemic -19. But there have already been documented declines in routine immunizations this year in many countries, including United States Experts at the WHO and elsewhere fear the pandemic will slow efforts to contain a wide range of infectious diseases such as measles, HIV and tuberculosis, especially in areas already in difficulty. Measles is not the only disease that threatens to overwhelm us, but it is one of the most preventable.

“Before there was a coronavirus crisis, the world was in the grip of a measles crisis, and it has not gone away,” Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF, said in a statement. declaration published by WHO. “As health systems are strained by the COVID-19 pandemic, we must not allow our fight against one deadly disease to come at the expense of our fight against another.”