Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 15 Dec 2023, 03:21 am Print
Measles Photo Courtesy: Unsplash
Measles, a vaccine-preventable disease which weakens children’s immune systems and can be fatal, is up by a staggering 3,200 per cent this year compared to last in Europe and Central Asia, UN Children’s Fund UNICEF said on Thursday (December 14, 2023).
Some 30,600 cases have been confirmed in the region so far in 2023 and UNICEF warned that numbers are expected to rise further due to gaps in immunity as vaccination rates have dropped.
“There is no clearer sign of a breakdown in immunisation coverage than an increase in cases of measles”, UNICEF’s director for the region Regina De Dominicis said, calling for urgent public health measures to protect children from the dangerous disease.
The highest rates of measles cases in Europe and Central Asia have been recorded in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Romania. An estimated 931,000 children in the region missed out entirely or partially on routine immunisation from 2019 to 2021.
UNICEF highlighted that the rate of immunisation with the first dose of the measles vaccine dropped from 96 per cent in 2019 to 93 per cent in 2022.
The UN agency attributes the drop in coverage to shrinking demand for vaccines “in part fuelled by misinformation and mistrust” during the COVID-19 pandemic, disruption to health services and weak primary healthcare systems among other factors.
- Struggling to keep weight off? This 8,500-step trick might work
- Panic after hantavirus-hit cruise evacuation: French national falls sick mid-air as virus scare grows
- Deadly virus fear at sea: Passengers exit hantavirus-hit cruise in Tenerife
- Could eggs be the secret to lower Alzheimer’s risk? Study says yes
- Over 100 sickened in Norovirus outbreak on Caribbean Princess cruise
