Measles Cases Rose 20% Last Year, WHO And CDC Say

Reuters (11/14, Roy, Sunny) reports, “Measles cases rose 20% last year, driven by a lack of vaccine coverage in the world’s poorest countries and those riddled with conflict, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday.” Almost “half of all the large and disruptive outbreaks occurred in the African region where the number of deaths increased by 37%, they said.” Roughly “10.3 million cases of the highly contagious infection were reported in 2023, compared with 8.65 million reported in the previous year, a report by the two agencies showed.” The findings were published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. ABC News (11/14, Zusstone) says, “Nearly 107,500 people died from measles worldwide in 2023 and children under the age of 5 were hit the hardest, the report found.” In the US, “there have been 277 measles cases reported across 30 states and the District of Columbia in 2024, more than four times the number of cases last year when there were 59 cases, according to” CDC data. CNN (11/14, Christensen) reports, “Globally, about 83% of children got their first dose of the measles vaccine in 2023, and only 74% got their recommended second dose, the health organizations said.” Over “22 million children missed getting vaccinated altogether.”