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Mortality from measles is dropping steadily across the world
In just 7 years, deaths from measles worldwide have dropped by 74%.
The number of fatalities was brought down from 750,000 to 197,000 between 2000 and 2007. This excellent news announced by the World Health Organisation in fact contains another triumph: in certain countries, such as Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, the figure has fallen by 90%!
Credit must go to the thousands of health workers who led awareness-raising and mass vaccination campaigns in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. These were mainly volunteers from UNICEF and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
Africa is the main contributor to these results: it is on this continent that 63% of the fall in mortality has been recorded. In Asia, on the other hand, progress has been more limited. Mortality has only fallen by 42% due to the late implementation of large-scale vaccination campaigns in India. Yet India alone accounts for two thirds of deaths from measles…
UNICEF director Ann Veneman points out that much remains to be done. Particularly so as measles is a tragic disease that still kills more than 500 children a day, despite the fact that a safe, effective and economical vaccine is available…
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14 article(s)
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