Highly contagious infectious disease
Why does the WHO warn about measles?
The number of measles infections rose sharply in 2023 compared to the previous year. Now the World Health Organization (WHO) is sounding the alarm.
Experts also see reasons for the increasing number of cases in some regions in the corona pandemic. In Europe, the rate of first measles vaccination in young children fell from 96 percent in 2019 to 93 percent in 2022. During the same period, vaccination coverage with the second dose fell from 92 percent to 91 percent. In total, more than 1.8 million young children in the WHO European Region are reported to have missed their measles vaccination between 2020 and 2022. The fact that some countries are doing much better than others is also due to the measles vaccination requirement, which exists in almost a dozen EU countries, including Italy, France, Croatia and Slovenia. Since March 1, 2020, it has also applied to Germany’s daycare and school children.
You can find out everything you should know about the situation in Germany and about compulsory vaccination, symptoms and complications here.