The number of measles cases worldwide has tripled in a year, amid concern about that anti-vaccine misinformation is deterring people from taking up inoculations.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said outbreaks around the world constituted a “clear trend” with an increase over the first three months of 2019 compared with the first three months of last year. The WHO says there have been 112,163 cases in 170 countries so far this year, whereas at this time last year only 28,124 cases had been reported, albeit from 163 countries.
The head of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Unicef’s executive director Henrietta Fore said the world was facing “a measles crisis”.
While WHO guidelines say countries should strive to inoculate 95 per cent of children with the first stage of the measles vaccine to provide effective ‘herd immunity’, some countries have seen rates fall below 85 per cent amid scares over the safety of vaccines, and a disproven “link” with autism.
The UN agencies place the blame on ‘anti-vax’ scare-mongering, particularly in wealthy countries. They said “in several high and middle-income countries there are parents who are delaying or refusing to vaccinate their children because they are unsure of the need for vaccines or that vaccines are safe.”
Measles is almost entirely preventable through two doses of a safe and effective vaccine. Yet it still causes over 100,000 deaths every year and is highly contagious.
Countries currently experiencing outbreaks, include the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar. Countries with overall high vaccination rates have also seen localised outbreaks including Israel, Thailand and Tunisia.
In the United States, a public health emergency was declared last week in New York City over an outbreak in Brooklyn. However attempts to make vaccines mandatory in affected areas may be frustrated after some parents lodged a law suit against public health authorities. Meanwhile an outbreak in Michigan was blamed yesterday on a man from New York who travelled to the state infecting 39 people along the way.
Scotland has not seen a major outbreak for several years and saw only 33 reported cases between 2014 and 2018, and like the UK has maintained high vaccination rates. However England has seen outbreaks with 913 cases reported to Public Health England in ten months of last year. Most were linked to people who had travelled from European countries where the disease has more of a hold, including Italy and Greece.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Childhood immunisation rates across Scotland remain very high. Uptake of the first dose of the MMR vaccine in children up to five continues to exceed the 95% target, and as a result, there is no evidence of significant transmission of measles in Scotland among infants or children in primary or secondary school. This reflects both the hard work and commitment of our colleagues in the NHS and the recognition of the benefits of vaccination.”
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