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Measles has made an
unwelcome global resurgence from Ohio to Indonesia with
cases rising around the world, and the worst of it is happening across
India. Health
workers in the country that’s home to 1.4 billion people are rushing
to contain the world’s biggest outbreak of measles, which presents
itself through a distinctive dotted rash, coughing and a fever that can
be deadly for children under the age of five. More than 11,000 cases
were registered in India between April and October this year, the most
globally, according to the latest World Health Organization and US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. After India’s health system was devastated
last year by a brutal coronavirus wave, the country’s authorities
appear to have been taken off guard again by the return of another
highly contagious virus in some of its most congested cities
like Mumbai, the country’s financial capital. Though
easily preventable through routine MMR (measles, mumps and rubella)
vaccinations, a 95% coverage rate is needed to halt community spread.
The outbreaks appear largely due to delayed childhood inoculation
campaigns caused by Covid lockdowns. Almost 40 million kids across the world missed a measles shot last year, according to a report published last month by the WHO and the US CDC. | |
As news of a
California measles outbreak spread in January, health officials urged
parents to vaccinate their children. The surge boosted Merck's sales of
its measles and other vaccines 24 percent last quarter.
In India alone,
2.5 million infants didn’t receive their first dose. That figure
was topped only by Nigeria, where 3.1 million children were left out of
immunization coverage.
For
some public health experts this latest outbreak has something of a
retrograde nature, just like with recent flareups of polio.
“So surreal to see this in 2022,” Madhukar Pai, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal, said on Twitter earlier this month. “In the 90s, during residency training in India, I hardly saw measles, thanks to vaccination.”
India’s central and state health ministries have been trying to stamp out the outbreak. In a repeat of tactics used during
the Covid pandemic, the southern state of Kerala is roping in religious
leaders to urge their communities to get their children vaccinated.
It’s
a race against time, as measles isn’t the only deadly disease likely to
reassert itself following the largest sustained decline in childhood
vaccinations in about three decades, the WHO and United Nations
Children’s Fund warned in July. At least 25 million kids didn’t receive at least one vaccine dose against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis in 2021.
“This
is a red alert for child health,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine
Russell said at the time. “The consequences will be measured in lives.” — Chris Kay