After years of declines in measles vaccination coverage, measles cases in 2022 increased by 18%, and deaths by 43% globally (compared with 2021), according to a report from the WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), which said the statistics take the estimated number of measles cases to 9m and deaths to 136 000 – mostly among children.
Measles continues to pose a relentlessly increasing threat to children, the agencies said. In 2022, 37 countries experienced large or disruptive measles outbreaks compared with 22 countries in 2021. Of the countries with outbreaks, 28 were in the WHO Region for Africa, six in the Eastern Mediterranean, two in the South-East Asia, and one in the European Region.
“The increase in outbreaks and deaths is staggering, but unfortunately, not unexpected given the declining vaccination rates we’ve seen in the past few years,” said John Vertefeuille, director of the CDC’s Global Immunisation Division.
“Measles cases anywhere pose a risk to all countries and communities where people are under-vaccinated. Urgent, targeted efforts are critical to prevent the disease and accompanying deaths.”
While there was a modest increase in global vaccination coverage in 2022 from 2021, there were still 33m children who missed a measles vaccine dose: nearly 22m missed their first dose and an additional 11m missed their second dose.
The global vaccine coverage rate of the first dose, at 83%, and second dose, at 74%, were still well under the 95% coverage with two doses that is necessary to protect communities from outbreaks.
Low-income countries, where the risk of death from measles is highest, continue to have the lowest vaccination rates at only 66%; a rate that shows no recovery at all from the backsliding during the pandemic.
Of the 22m children who missed their first measles vaccine dose in 2022, more than half live in just 10 countries: Angola, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Philippines.
“The lack of recovery in measles vaccine coverage in low-income countries since the pandemic is an alarm bell for action. Measles is called the inequity virus for good reason. It is the disease that will find and attack those who aren’t protected,” said Kate O’Brien, WHO director for Immunisation, Vaccine and Biologicals.
CDC report – Progress Toward Measles Elimination — Worldwide, 2000–2022 (Open access)
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