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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has welcomed a notable rise in global measles immunisation rates but warned that coverage has yet to recover to levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of vulnerable children still missing out.
According to a report released on Friday, worldwide vaccination coverage reached 84 per cent in 2024, a modest increase from 83 per cent the year before and a sharp improvement from 71 per cent a quarter of a century ago.
Despite that progress, the figure remains below the 86 per cent recorded before the coronavirus crisis disrupted health services worldwide.
The agency said 20.6 million children did not receive their first measles dose last year, with more than half of them living in Africa.
Health officials stress that at least 95 per cent global coverage with two doses is needed to effectively stop the virus from spreading.
Kate O’Brien, who leads the WHO’s immunisation department, warned that measles remains a serious and sometimes fatal illness, particularly for young children, expectant mothers and people with weakened immune systems.
She said the consequences were clear wherever vaccination uptake fell.
While the proportion of children receiving a second dose has climbed dramatically from 17 per cent in 2000 to 76 per cent in 2024, the organisation said immunity gaps had led to a renewed surge in outbreaks.
In the past year alone, 59 countries experienced major or disruptive measles outbreaks, the highest number in more than two decades.
Diana Chang Blanc, from the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation, described it as especially worrying that a quarter of these outbreaks occurred in countries previously certified as measles-free.
Several nations in the Americas have battled fresh outbreaks this year. Canada has now lost its status as being free of measles, and specialists fear the United States could soon follow as it faces its worst flare-up in three decades.
O’Brien said every infection and death linked to measles underlines the risks that arise when health systems cannot reach every child and vaccination rates slip.
The WHO estimated there were 11 million measles infections worldwide in 2024, nearly 800,000 more than before the pandemic.
However, it also pointed to long-term progress, noting that cases have fallen dramatically since 2000, when about 38 million infections were recorded globally.
