A rise in measles deaths – and a decline in the number of children having the MMR jab – has resulted in Britain, with five others, losing its status as a measles-free country, reports The Guardian.
Other countries in Europe and central Asia that the WHO says are no longer measles-free are Spain, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
The WHO had adjudged the UK to have eliminated the disease between 2021 and 2023, but recent increases in recorded cases – there were 3 681 in 2024 – and rises in the number of outbreaks and deaths, has led to a rethink.
There were 20 deaths from measles between 2019 and 2025, the same number as in the 19 years between 1999 and 2018.
Doctors, public health experts and local councils said the WHO’s decision reflected the country’s diminishing uptake of the MMR vaccination, which they linked to vaccine hesitancy and parents’ difficulty in getting appointments for their children to be immunised.
The WHO’s European regional verification commission for measles and rubella elimination said it “noted with concern the loss of measles elimination status in some member states, including some with high-performing immunisation programmes”.
It highlighted the fact that most of the people across Europe who had been infected were not immunised, and urged governments to revamp their vaccination efforts to “close all remaining immunity gaps, focusing especially on vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations”.
Children in Britain are offered two doses of the MMR jab, at 12 and 18-months-old, but coverage has declined over the past decade. The most recent annual data show that uptake of the first MMR jab in England fell from 91.9% in 2015-16 to 88.9% in 2024-25.
Similarly, the proportion of five-year-olds who have had a second MMR vaccine, which the WHO recommends to ensure immunity, fell from a peak of 88.2% in 2015-16 to 83.7% in 2024-25.
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