Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have warned of a high risk of a measles outbreak, with an increase in the number of cases globally by nearly 80% in 2022, compared to 2021.
A statement issued by the two agencies on Wednesday stated that 17,338 measles cases were reported globally during January and February 2022, compared to 9,665 cases in the same period in 2021. The two agencies noted that there had been 21 outbreaks of the disease “on a large and confusing scale”, many of them in Africa and the Mediterranean region.
“Pandemic-related obstacles, growing inequality in access to vaccines, and diversion of resources from routine immunization services have left far too many children unprotected from measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” the statement said. The statement continued, that cities and countries easing preventive measures for “Covid-19”, increased the risk of an outbreak of measles.
“It is encouraging that people in many communities are beginning to feel protected from COVID-19 to re-engage in more social activities,” UNICEF Executive Director Kathryn Russell said in the statement. “However, this may create favorable conditions for the spread of diseases such as measles in Places where children do not receive routine immunization services.
In 2020, 23 million children did not have access to basic childhood vaccinations, and vaccination campaigns for children were recently hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts in Ukraine, Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.
The two agencies reported that since April 1, “57 vaccination campaigns against vaccine-preventable diseases have been scheduled and postponed in 43 countries since the beginning of the pandemic, affecting 203 million people, the majority of whom are children.” They pointed out that 19 of them are campaigns to prevent measles, which puts 73 million children at risk of contracting this disease due to a lack of vaccines.
The World Health Organization and UNICEF indicated that “the coverage of two doses of safe and effective measles vaccines protects by 95% or more.” The two agencies reported that the coverage rate for the first dose in the five countries with the largest number of cases last year was lower than 70% in 2020.
And the US Centers for Disease Control and Control (CDC) reported in data published last week that measles vaccinations among kindergarten students fell to 93.6% during the 2020-2021 school year.
In a statement on the vaccination data, Dr. Shannon Stockley, deputy director of the Division of Immunization Services, said they were concerned that a lack of routine immunization services could expose vulnerable children to vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough.