GENEVA – More than half of countries worldwide will be at high or very high risk of measles outbreaks by the end of the year unless urgent preventive measures are taken, the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday.
Measles cases are on the rise in most regions, mainly due to missed vaccinations during the COVID-19 years, when health systems were overwhelmed and behind routine vaccinations against preventable diseases.
“What we’re worried about is that this year, 2024, we have these big gaps in our vaccination programs, and if we don’t fill them really quickly with a vaccine, measles will just jump into that gap,” WHO’s Natasha Crowcroft said. , chief technical adviser on measles and rubella, told a news conference in Geneva.
“From the data generated by the CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) based on WHO data, we can see that more than half of all countries in the world will have a high or very high risk of an outbreak. end of this year.”
She called for urgent action to protect children, saying governments were “lacking resolve” in the face of competing challenges such as economic crises and conflict.
Measles is a highly contagious, airborne virus that mostly affects children under the age of five. It can be prevented with two doses of the measles vaccine and has prevented more than 50 million deaths since 2000, according to the WHO.
The number of cases rose by 79 percent to more than 300,000 last year, according to WHO figures, which are believed to represent just a fraction of the total.
Outbreaks have been reported in all WHO regions except the Americas, although Crowcroft warned that they are to be expected.
Measles deaths are higher in poorer countries because of weaker health systems, Crowcroft said, adding that outbreaks and deaths are also a risk for middle- and high-income countries.
“We’ve had many outbreaks of measles around the world and middle-income countries have really suffered. And we’re worried that 2024 will look like 2019,” she said.
