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She had tried to get them vaccinated at his local clinic long before they got sick, but there was no vaccine to have, she told CNN.
The epidemic has been particularly devastating for infants. Babies aged nine months and under account for 84% of confirmed deaths to date. Almost all the rest of the mortality is in school children.
The Madagascar epidemic is a warning of what could happen elsewhere, even in the rich world, if measles immunization rates did not increase. Global coverage has stagnated at 85% in recent years, well below herd protection levels.
Because measles is so contagious – the virus can live in the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes for up to two hours – it can be extremely difficult to control outbreaks.
During a major epidemic, even some of the vaccinated ones may contract the disease if their immune system has been severely compromised by HIV, leukemia or other conditions.
Measles, which had already killed 2.6 million people a year before a vaccine developed in the 1960s began to make a difference, is on the rise again. The number of cases worldwide reported by WHO has doubled to 229,068 last year, including 82,596 in Europe, largely due to slower vaccination rates, experts said.
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