Cases of Measles Double Worldwide

New projections from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate cases of measles around the world have doubled. According to IFLScience.com, “while there were around 170,000 reported measles cases in 2017, last year had well over 229,000 cases. … These are currently provisional figures for 2018 and the final figure is expected to be over 50 percent higher than in 2017.”

Measles is a highly contagious, but fully preventable disease. Symptoms include fever, rashes, cough, and diarrhea and, according to WHO, caused the deaths of almost 90,000 individuals in 2016 (reduced by 84% from 550,100 deaths in 2000). This reduction is typically attributed to measle vaccinations, however WHO’s Director of Immunization and Vaccines Professor Katherine O’Brien believes “the world is now ‘backsliding’ in its attempts to halt the spread of measles.”

“Our data are showing that there is a substantial increase in measles cases,” Professor O’Brien said in a recent press conference. “We’re seeing this in all regions, this is not an isolated problem. A measles outbreak anywhere is a measles problem everywhere.”

The primary cause of these outbreaks? The “failure to vaccinate” which has stemmed from “a growing distrust of vaccinations based on pure misinformation, especially in richer countries.”

“The level of misinformation – the world that we live in now – is causing threats to that success in many parts of the world,” O’Brien said. “There has been an enormous bout of misinformation that has caused damage to the measles effort.”