Measles is debilitating and deadly and cases are surging, WHO and CDC warn

Measles is debilitating, deadly and making a comeback, WHO and CDC warn. Pictured is the MMR vaccine. (George Frey/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Global measles cases surged by more than 20 per cent to an estimated 10.3 million last year, the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. About 107,500 people, mostly young children, died — an “unacceptable” death toll from a disease that’s preventable through vaccination, the health groups said.

The increase in cases is driven by falling levels of vaccination. Measles can be deadly and debilitating, but it is preventable with two doses of the highly effective measles vaccine. One dose is 93 per cent effective against measles, and two doses is 97 per cent effective.

The virus had been completely eliminated from 82 countries in the last 50 years, but lack of access to vaccines and misinformation about vaccine safety has caused the world to backslide. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a global decline in the number of people getting even standard vaccinations.

Measles is so highly contagious that 95 per cent of the community needs to be fully vaccinated to offer some protection to the unvaccinated, including children too young to be vaccinated.

Globally, about 83 per cent of children got their first dose of the measles vaccine in 2023 and only 74 per cent got their recommended second dose, the health organizations said. There were more than 22 million children who missed getting vaccinated altogether.

In the US, a dip in measles vaccination rates among kindergartners meant that coverage has been well below the federal target for four years in a row. The measles vaccination rate fell last year to 92.7 per cent coverage for kindergartners in the 2023-24 school year according to CDC data released in October. As of November 7, there have been a total of 266 measles cases reported in the US in 2024 alone, with 16 outbreaks, according to the CDC.

With so many gaps in global vaccine coverage, there was a 60 per cent increase in the number of significant measles outbreaks in 2023. Fifty-seven countries saw large or disruptive measles outbreaks last year, an increase from 36 in 2022. Measles outbreaks have impacted nearly every region. Nearly half of the outbreaks were in Africa.

In 2023, there was an eight per cent decrease in measles deaths from the year before. It’s not because the virus was less deadly, but rather because outbreaks occurred in parts of the world where children had better access to health care and proper nutrition. Studies show children whose immune systems are weak due to hunger or other underlying diseases are more vulnerable to death from the disease. Up to 3 of every 1,000 children who become infected with the measles may die from respiratory and neurologic complications, according to the CDC.

General symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes and a rash of red spots, but measles can leave people with lifelong health problems, particularly infants and children. Measles can also cause blindness, brain damage and pneumonia. About 1 in every 20 children with measles will develop pneumonia, according to the CDC.

“Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “To save even more lives and stop this deadly virus from harming the most vulnerable, we must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live.”

CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen told CNN’s Meg Tirrell Wednesday that she doesn’t want to see the world go backwards just to remind people that vaccines work.

“I think we have a very short memory of what it is like to hold a child who has been paralyzed with polio or to comfort a mom who’s lost her kid from measles,” Cohen said at the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit. “We need to remember that the reason we have these childhood vaccines is to make sure that we are the strongest, the healthiest that we can be as a community.”

CNN’s Meg Tirrell and Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report