The benefits of vaccinations
Vaccination has helped to achieve a record low death rate from measles
Natalia Pelezneva, Naked Science
Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) He summed up the results of 2017 in the field of increasing the availability of vaccination around the world. According to representatives of the alliance, thanks to vaccinations, the mortality rate from measles has been reduced to a record low. Compared to 2000, the number of deaths caused by this disease has fallen by 84%.
The decrease in mortality from measles was reported World Health Organization. Its experts analyzed data on morbidity and mortality from the disease from 2000 to 2016. In 2016, 89,780 people died from measles worldwide – this number for the first time in the history of observations did not exceed the annual mark of 100,000 victims. In 2000, measles killed more than 550,000 people, and before the introduction of the measles vaccine, about 2.6 million people died from the disease annually.
Most of those dying from measles are children, so vaccination in the first months of life is fundamentally important. In 2016, 85% of children received their first vaccination before the age of one year, in 2000 this number was 72%. WHO estimates that between 2000 and 2016, the measles vaccine saved about 20.4 million lives.
GAVI Alliance Chief Executive Officer Seth Berkley writes: "Unfortunately, this remarkable progress is threatened by low vaccination coverage – not only in many developing countries, but also in some high-income countries. Several of the strongest outbreaks of measles recorded in 2017 occurred in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Italy and Germany. Since measles is highly contagious, a much higher level of population coverage is needed for the development of population immunity than in the case of other vaccines. As a result, measles outbreaks can help identify areas with low coverage at an early stage."
Earlier, American epidemiologists called the refusal of vaccinations the main cause of measles outbreaks in recent years.
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