Measles Strikes Back

It’s practically unthinkable, and certainly makes little sense—but its looking like measles is no longer something we can dismiss lightly. The WHO just recently announced that they will not be reaching their 2015 goal in the plan for measles elimination. In fact, the number of children’s death due to measles actually increased by nearly 20% between 2012 and 2013. 400 kids a day still die from the easily preventable virus.

Of the 21.6million un-vaccinated kids in the world, 80% live in 6 counties—India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the democratic republic of the congo. But issues with funding has stymied the campaign. The WHO blames a stall in funding programs as the main reason for this jump in fatalities.

Even domestically where measles SHOULD NOT be a problem with the well funded vaccination campaign and vaccine availability here, the past year has seen 603 cases. This is more than has been seen in 20 years. It appears the progress is not only stalling, but sliding backwards.

Sources: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/eliminating-measles/en/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/29/317045500/measles-hits-amish-communities-and-u-s-cases-reach-20-year-high

--Lauren Sweet