MEASLES CASES SOARED in Europe in 2023 to 42,200, a nearly 45-fold increase over the previous year, the UN health agency has said today as it called for urgent vaccination efforts to halt the spread.
Some 41 countries out of 53 the World Health Organization includes in its Europe region reported the infectious disease, WHO said.
In 2022, 941 cases were registered.
Vaccination rates against the disease slipped during the Covid-19 pandemic and “urgent vaccination efforts are needed to halt transmission and prevent further spread”.
Russia and Kazakhstan fared the worst, with 10,000 cases each from January to October last year. In Western Europe, Britain had the most cases with 183.
The WHO also said there were nearly 21,000 hospitalisations and five measles-related deaths in the January-October period.
“This is concerning,” the WHO said.
Some 1.8 million infants in the WHO’s Europe region were not vaccinated against measles between 2020 and 2022.
“It is vital that all countries are prepared to rapidly detect and timely respond to measles outbreaks, which could endanger progress towards measles elimination.”
In the week ending 13 January 2024, no cases of measles were recorded in Ireland, according to data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC).
Measles is a highly infectious viral illness. It starts with cold-like symptoms that develop about 10 days after a person gets infected. The person will then get a measles rash a few days later.
The illness usually lasts seven to 10 days.
In recent years, vaccination rates against measles have been dropping across the globe.
In 2022, 83% of children received a first measles vaccine during their first year of life, up from 81% coverage in 2021, but down from 86% before the pandemic and the lowest level since 2008, WHO has said previously.
Speaking to the Oireachtas Health Committee on 15 November, the HSE’s Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry said there has been a “fall-off in uptake of the primary childhood vaccinations, including those against measles, mumps, rubella and meningitis”, which he described as “troubling”.
Dr Henry noted that the Committee hard from Dr Ciara Martin that “meningitis is now a rare illness in hospitals thanks to the vaccination programme”.
“We should never take for granted the huge gains that were made in not seeing measles anymore, so much so that doctors in training would not recognise these conditions now,” he said.
“We are concerned about the rate of drop-off.”
Data from the HPSC shows that between the 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 academic year, overall uptake in HSE-vaccine administered local health offices to junior infant children decreased from 88% to 87.5%.
Between the 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 academic year, overall uptake in GP-vaccine administered local health offices to junior infant children decreased from 88.1% to 86.3%
The HPSC did note, however, that the decline in uptake during this academic year may have been related to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The HSE’s target is 95% immunisation, the level recommended by the World Health Organization to ensure community-wide protection.
In 2022, only 92% of children in Europe received a second dose of the vaccine, according to WHO.
In Britain, in some areas around the major city of Birmingham the level of full vaccination has dropped to 81%.
Last July, the HSE warned a measles outbreak “could happen in Ireland” and urged parents to ensure children were immunised before travelling in the summer.
The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Breda Smyth, said that she was “very worried about measles in our population”.
“Measles is a highly infectious disease. One infected person can spread the disease to 12 or more people who are not immune or not vaccinated,” the HSE said in July.
It added that parents should check that children are up to date with their vaccines before travelling.
What are the symptoms of measles?
Measles can cause chest infections, fits (seizures), ear infections, swelling of the brain and/or damage to the brain.
In 2021, there were an estimated 128,000 measles deaths worldwide, mostly among under-vaccinated or unvaccinated children under five, it said.
WHO estimates that measles vaccines have helped prevent 56 million deaths between 2000 and 2021.
Further information regarding measles can be found on the HSE’s website.
With reporting by - © AFP 2024
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