Children's Health Defense
Measles vaccination rates worldwide dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic period and have not returned to their pre-pandemic levels, according to a report published last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The report, which analyzed “progress toward measles elimination” between 2000-2023, cited a 20% global surge in measles cases between 2022 and 2023 — yet researchers also found that the number of deaths from measles declined by 8%.
Falling vaccination rates are driving the rise in cases, the report concluded. During the pandemic, estimated global coverage with one dose of a two-dose measles-containing vaccine declined to 81%, they reported.
CDC data published last year showed that in the last two decades, global measles vaccination rates had been rising steadily — from 72% in 2000 to 86% in 2019. They fell 5 percentage points in 2021, to 81%, but then inched up to 83% in 2022.
Globally, approximately 83% of children received their first dose of the measles vaccine in 2023, and 74% got their recommended second dose, the health organizations said. More than 22 million children missed getting vaccinated altogether, the health agencies said in a press conference that accompanied the report. Health officials credited the vaccines for averting 60.3 million measles deaths between 2000-2023.
Most of the estimated 107,500 reported deaths globally from measles in 2023 occurred in the African region, a WHO spokesperson said, which was published in the CDC’s online Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Measles deaths most commonly occur “in low-income countries and countries experiencing fragile, conflict-affected, and vulnerable settings, which exacerbate inequities,” the report said.
According to the report, vaccination coverage is also the lowest in such countries. The researchers concluded that higher vaccination rates, particularly in vulnerable countries, would be necessary to eliminate measles…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (childrenshealthdefense.org)
Home | Caravan to Midnight (zutalk.com)
