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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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When you import half the world, things tend to get a bit dicey
@Rex Tynan: your comment makes no sense. It’s not hard: when measles vaccination rates fall, measles cases rise.
@mani mus: if you had a kid who had measles, you wouldn’t send that kid to school, think about it
@Rex Tynan: That kid will have had measles for 10 days before the symptoms show.
Spreading it to others, most other kids.
It’s nothing to do with the anti-vaxx, who believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism.
@Paul Crudge: na, they’re all off protesting outside hotels and burning down derelict pubs
@Paul Crudge:
No it’s to do with mass immigration from poor third world country’s were most are not even vaccinated for anything…but yea blame those that didn’t get the covid vaccine makes total sense not the 3rd World immigrants and their children with no vaccinations at all…
@Paul Crudge: something is causing it
@William Slevin: there was bound to be someone drawing that conclusion. Perhaps we should help them get vaccinated. Or better still, help develop their economies. Or stop destroying our planet to lessen the need for migration
@Radical Centrist:
I wouldn’t be against anything you’ve suggested…but lest get one thing straight ireland isn’t destroying the planet we’ve barely been developed ourselves ffs ireland was still classed a third world country until mid 90s…
Best solution to stop economic migrants from coming ideally would be to yes develop their countries economy’s…don’t you think it greedy for the small elite in our country to keep creating jobs more than our native population needs thus requiring foreigners to move here for the wealthy to become more wealthy…wouldn’t these excess jobs be better exported to these migrants country’s so they can develop their economy’s…
@William Slevin: We’re a relatively big economy with a relatively big carbon footprint and a relatively big say in European affairs. We’re also relatively sparsely populated and I think we could do with all the tradespeople, hospitality workers and cultural diversity we can get. I like the kind, welcoming, green idea of Ireland- not the selfish, insolent one. Particularly, as you say, it’s not been long since we were in the same position! We could do with some more gaffs though.
@Radical Centrist:
I’d like to see a complete breakdown of that carbon footprint is it because we’re over importing while over exporting…also yes our economy is big but we’re mostly a service/agricultural economy with some but not much manufacturing compared to the previous stated…
Why oh why do we need cultural diversity it great numbers, I’m not against some…but to such a degree it overly impacts our own to our detriment…as I’ve said on here before I’ve lived and travelled around the planet but mostly Asia mostly China…so I’m no stranger well to being a stranger in someone else’s land…and it was this experience that showed me I was right to value mine as these Asian countries did theirs…I can tell you this Asian countries hate any kind of mass immigration…
Damn 800 character limit lol
Where you want more I don’t just want less I want to send 85% home or onwards…that would save our infrastructure from collapse and end the housing crisis…I also want to send the excess jobs out of the country to a point…to me we took on too much too fast and its destroying us…the greed of the few extreme wealthy elite are pushing mass immigration at our detrement…and it’s going to end up badly for all…history has shown us it always does…
Wanting our home country back to just being ours doesn’t make us bad,inward,backward,backwater…insolence kind of people…because you would not say that to a native indigenous people on the African continent, India, the Americas, Australia…who’ve dealt with colonism…so why are we as people any different…
@William Slevin: dude. If immigration is the reason measles cases are rising, and Ireland has way too much immigration, why does Ireland have zero cases of measles as of last week? The answer is that immigration isn’t the reason. Just like immigration isn’t the reason for our housing crisis. Somebody has been lying to you.
@William Slevin: wrong.
@mani mus: You may be right about immigration not being the cause of spreading illness.
You may be wrong.
Nut you are certainly wrong to say that immigration is not the cause of the housing crisis.
How many home are we short of?
How many people came to these shores in the last few years alone?
@mani mus:
I didn’t say ireland had a rise in measles…the article is about the eu…and yes most of the diseas once mostly dealth with are rising due to mass immigration I’m not saying their spread these diseases to the native population its spreading amongst themselves because almost none of them have been immunised in their home country’s and even when their here they don’t get immunised…that’s just a fact…
By the way if you can’t see in this country the population rising at an exponential rate like 100,000 last year where so called refugees are left in tents and you can’t put together the maths to see that the insane rate of mass immigration of all kinds not just refugees and fake refugees has crushed the housing market but not just their but the hotel market aswell..
where finding free accommodation at in vacant is becoming impossible or unaffordable…
Get your head out of sand man stop believing the lies of those with self interests that don’t give a shxt about you
@Gavin Gray:
Care to elaborate?
Measles, and TB and Diphtheria and Polio and Hooping Cough are all making a comeback. Open borders mean our herd immunity is disappearing!
@Brian Hunt: I dropped my toast this morning. Our open borders mean our clumsiness is rising!
@Brian Hunt:
It’s not so much that as it is rising in these immigrant populations who are immunised for now its mostly just among them…but what could happen is give rise to new variants eventually that will be harder to tackle with current vaccines…
While covid wasn’t the threat to the general population it was made out to be…I don’t know how these pro open border advocates haven’t learnt from the pandemic how a virus can mutate and is highly facilated by mass movements of people especially globally…the irony never hits them at all…their just blissfully and hypocritically ignorant due to their extreme ideological stance on globalism…
Anyone else disturbed by the picture thejournal.ie chose for the headline…a terrified child with just a pair of hands holding the vaccine vile and needle…that’s some way to get your point across to the reader isn’t…
@William Slevin: That child does not look terrified, more like interested.
@Steve O’Hara Smith.:
Well that’s a disturbing response…
@William Slevin: isn’t due to immigration or refugees, Denmark measured the measles antibody levels of refugees and immigrants, “We found that 85% of the total group of refugees had immunity against measles.” This is similar to native population, so refugees aren’t to blame for falling immunisation rates.
Hvass, A.M.F., Norredam, M., Sodemann, M., Thomsen, M.K. and Christian, W., 2020. Are refugees arriving in Denmark an under-immunised group for measles? A cross-sectional serology study. Vaccine, 38(13), pp.2788-2794.
Also, Ukranians have a near 100% MMR immunisation rate, higher than us.
There pumping all these injections to babies here in Ireland,and your Children won’t be taking into creches or school without them,but u can let 100s of thousands into Europe,and don’t even know where their coming from and what they might gave,but not to worry,the WHO won’t even address it,I honestly think that’s why they want all these people coming in,and they can bully people like the did with the Covid vaccines,it’s bad when in Davos last week,they are telling us the next pandemic is coming,it’s been called X at the moment,probably be a 100% death rate.they know the people will not comply this time,and the Covid didn’t kill as many as they hoped too,I hope Trump gets in if only to bring Fauci to Court,and break up NATO,the world will be a safer place,for the EU aswell.
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