PAHO confirms Americas as world’s first region to be measles-free
After a 22-year vaccination drive against measles, the Americas has now become the first region in the world to be free of measles, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The health milestone was confirmed after three years of no recorded cases of the highly contagious disease in the region, the PAHO said.
Carissa Etienne, director of the PAHO, which serves as the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional office for the Americas, called this success a “historic deed”.
Measles, caused by a virus, originated in the Americas. The last outbreak of the disease that originated in the region occurred in 2002 in Venezuela, according to PAHO.
The disease still remains as one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available. According to the WHO, there were 114,900 deaths in the world in 2014 that was caused by measles. That’s about 314 deaths every day or 13 deaths every hour.
According to PAHO, around 250,000 people were infected with measles in 2015, mostly in Africa and Asia.
Before a separate, worldwide vaccination drive against measles began in the 1980s, the disease caused 2.6 million deaths a year worldwide – 12,000 of them in the Americas, according to PAHO.
Measles is the fifth vaccine-preventable disease to be eliminated in the Americas – after smallpox in 1971, poliomyelitis in 1994, and rubella and congenital rubella syndrome in 2015, the PAHO said.
Category: Features, Pharmaceuticals
