Category: Vaccine

MANILA, Philippines House Deputy Majority Leader and Iloilo 1st Dist. Rep. Jannette Garin is urging parents to have their children inoculated and free themselves from vaccine hesitancy, which she claimed seemed to be the cause of the increasing cases of pertussis (whooping cough) nationwide.

Garin made the call after the Department of Health (DOH) reported 1,477 cases of pertussis from January 1 to April 6, with 63 deaths.

Bakit sa buong mundo ang Pilipinas lang nagkaroon ng pertussis outbreak? At bakit yung polio bumalik? Bakit noong mga nakaraang taon grabe ang mga namamatay sa measles. This is all because of vaccine hesitancy, Garin, a doctor and former health secretary, said.

(Why did the Philippines have an outbreak of pertussis? And why did polio come back? Last year, many people also died due to measles. This is all because of vaccine hesitancy.)

Ngayon, measles outbreak ulit sa ibang panig ng Pilipinas at patuloy na may mga namamatay at yung iba naman ay nagkakaroon permanent injury like encephalopathy and blindness, Garin added.

(Many people in various parts of the Philippines are dying due to measles others are having permanent injuries like encephalopathy and blindness.)

Pertussis is a respiratory illness caused by Bordetella pertussis bacteria. It causes rapid, violent, and uncontrolled coughing fits, which can go on for up to 10 weeks or more.

According to the DOH, it affects people of all ages but is especially dangerous and even fatal for young children and infants.

To combat the increasing cases in the country, reports said the Philippines expects three million pentavalent or 5-in-1 vaccine doses by June.

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Parents urged to ditch vaccine hesitancy amid rising pertussis cases - Inquirer.net

Cavities are a communicable disease, and if youre among the 90 percent of Americans whos ever had one, you probably got them from your mother.

So begins The Rise and Impending Fall of the Dental Cavity, a remarkably engrossing and, for me, genuinely eye-opening survey of the history and science of tooth decay, published last week by the pseudonymous Cremieux Recueil on his Substack. The bacterium Streptococcus mutans might not seem like the likeliest subject for a 7,600-word general-interest deep-dive, but Cremieux takes detours into the immaculate teeth of dinosaurs, the practice of Neolithic dentistry, the agricultural and industrial revolutions and their effect on our diets, and the dental agony of Americas founding fathers.

His essay is a kind of masterpiece of an emergent form of internet argumentation one with roots in the blogosphere and the message-board culture of an earlier era but which really flowered in the pandemic years: extremely long, exhaustively researched, often compiled by obsessive nonexperts and aimed at a contrarian lesson about public health, say, or educational achievement, or the origins of the pandemic. For me, the archetypal example is probably the 10-part investigation, with nine interludes, into the causes of American obesity published in 2021 by a pair of anonymous researchers, calling themselves Slime Mold Time Mold, who proposed environmental contamination of our water table by the runoff of the mood stabilizer lithium as the driver of the countrys skyrocketing body mass index and have since undertaken the staging of a large-scale, self-supervised community trial of what they call the potato diet.

In this case, the lesson was about what is going on in the bacteria pools we call mouths and what we could do to clean them up. Probably, you remember admonitions from childhood that eating candy will rot your teeth, but that story turns out to be a bit simplistic the problem isnt that your teeth hate sugar but that Streptococcus mutans loves it. And when it consumes sugar, the byproduct is lactic acid, which is what really starts to eat away at your dental enamel. Not everyone has an oral microbiome dominated by Streptococcus mutans, but chances are if you do, it was passed to you by your parents, very early on and if you eat any sugar, youre very likely to suffer tooth decay.

In places like the United States where drugs are advertised directly to consumers, pharmacies are lined with whitening toothpaste and yuppie dentists hawk Invisalign between fillings you might have come to see oral health as primarily a cosmetic matter. (Perhaps, given the costs, even a scam.) But probably a quarter of Americans and more than a third of the world have untreated cavities or tooth decay, and there is an awful lot of science linking oral hygiene with overall health and well-being. The connections are both direct (untreated cavities can host infections, which can spread elsewhere in the body, causing cellulitis and osteomyelitis, among other infections, and other forms of oral bacteria have been linked to colon and colorectal cancers) and indirect (Tooth loss is correlated with higher all-cause mortality, with studies of large-scale tooth loss finding large increases in all-cause mortality risk.) Thats one reason, over the past few decades, there have been periodic efforts to develop a vaccine for tooth decay, focused on Streptococcus mutans.

But Impending Fall was not prompted by an F.D.A. approval of such a vaccine, a successful large-scale clinical trial or even news of such a trial getting underway. It wasnt even occasioned by the publication of new academic research or a new book. Instead, it referred to the rollout of a new product called Lumina, conceived by the startup Lantern Bioworks and sold to customers directly as a probiotic supplement and an opportunity to participate in something more like a health-care version of a beta-test soft launch.

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Opinion | Luminas Cavity Vaccine and a New Era of D.I.Y. Medicine - The New York Times

In updates to its frequently-asked-question backgrounder on the H5N1 avian flu situation in dairy cows yesterday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) provided several updates on the investigation and response, including that its Agricultural Research Service has started to assess the potential to develop an H5N1 vaccine for cows.

The agency added that it's difficult to say how long development might take, because there are still questions about transmission to cattle and characteristics of infection in cows. APHIS said manufacturers have expressed interest in producing vaccines for both poultry and cows.

"We will continue to engage with these developers to better understand their vaccine development, the efficacy of potential vaccines, as well as the cost of development and production," it said.

Among other updates, APHIS said wild migratory birds are still thought to be the original source of the virus, though the investigations have found instances of virus spread linked to cattle movements between herds.

APHIS also noted that there is similar evidence that the virus has spread from dairy herds back into poultry flocks through an unknown route.

In other developments, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) said yesterday that tests have confirmed highly pathogenic avian flu in a commercial poultry facility in Newaygo County, which is located in the west central region not far where outbreaks recently struck dairy facilities and poultry operations.

MDARD urged producers to protect their animals from wild birds and viruses they may be carrying as the wild birds complete their spring migration.

Recent outbreaks were reported at two massive Ionia County layer facilities, and the latest poultry outbreak updates from USDA APHIS reflect a third outbreak in Ionia County, at a farm that has 2.4 million birds. APHIS also reported a second outbreak at a hatchery in New Mexico's Roosevelt County and infections at a live-bird sales operation in Florida's Miami-Dade County.

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USDA scientists weigh avian flu vaccine for cows; virus may be spreading from cattle to poultry - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

There is no evidence that mRNA Covid vaccines cause fatal cardiac arrest or other deadly heart problems in teens and young adults, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published Thursday shows.

Ever since the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were authorized in late 2020, anti-vaccination groups in the U.S. have blamed the shots for fatal heart problems in young athletes.

One of the most notorious examples of vaccine misinformation involves Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, 26, who in 2023 collapsed on Monday Night Football as a result of cardiac arrest. Hamlin was resuscitated on the field and eventually recovered. He returned to play for the Bills last season.

When Damar Hamlin went down, immediately comments were getting made that it was possibly vaccine-related, said study co-author Dr. Paul Cieslak, the medical director of communicable diseases and immunizations at Oregon Health Authoritys public health division. This is kind of what we were trying to address with this analysis.

The findings in the new report come from the analysis of nearly 1,300 death certificates of Oregon residents ages 16 to 30 who died from any heart condition or unknown reasons between June 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2022.

During this time period, nearly 1 million teens and young adults in the state had gotten a Covid vaccine, the authors wrote.

The authors refined their focus to people who got an mRNA Covid vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna and died within 100 days of being vaccinated.

Out of 40 deaths that occurred among people who got an mRNA Covid vaccine, three occurred within that time frame.

Two of the deaths were attributed to chronic underlying health conditions.

The third death was recorded as an undetermined natural cause, with toxicology tests returning negative for alcohol, cannabis, methamphetamine or other illicit substances.

The medical examiner could neither confirm nor exclude Covid vaccination as the cause of death; however, none of the death certificates attributed the fatalities to the vaccines.

While it remains unclear whether the vaccine caused the third death, Cieslak noted that the analysis showed that 30 people died from Covid during the time frame, the majority of whom were not vaccinated.

When youre balancing risks and benefits, you have to look at that and go, You got to bet on the vaccine, he said.

Dr. Leslie Cooper, chair of the cardiology department at the Mayo Clinic, who was not involved in the study, said the researchers were actually quite generous in their analysis, adding that the 100-day time frame following vaccination was a large one.

They went above and beyond to try and capture any possible cardiac death from vaccinations, he said.

Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops beating and pumping blood to the rest of the body. Its not the same as a heart attack, which happens when blood flow to the hearts muscle becomes limited or blocked, or myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle.

For people under 35, the causes of cardiac arrest are often unclear. It could be the result of genetic defects or heart malfunctions, such as problems with the valves of the heart.

Even with the lengthy time frame, Cooper added, the analysis shows that the risk of sudden death in young adults after being vaccinated is significantly lower than the risk of sudden cardiac death from all causes about 1 in 500,000 per year, compared to 1 in 100,000 per year, according to his estimates.

The data shows no signal for any elevation in cardiac deaths associated with the Covid mRNA vaccines, he said. Their conclusions are quite reasonable.

No vaccine has ever been conclusively linked to sudden cardiac death, said Dr. Ofer Levy, the director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Childrens Hospital.

Although the mRNA vaccines have been linked to a small risk of myocarditis, the heart condition tends to be much milder than what is typically seen with traditional myocarditis from Covid infection, he added, and most people fully recover within a few days.

This adds to evidence that people dont drop dead from getting their mRNA Covid vaccines, Levy said of the study.

Link:

Covid vaccines aren't linked to sudden death in young people, a new CDC report finds. - NBC News

GSK plc GSK announced that the FDA has accepted its biologics license application (BLA)seeking approval of its 5-in-1 meningococcal ABCWY vaccine candidate, MenABCWY. The FDA has granted a standard review to the BLA and is expected to give its decision on Feb 14, 2025.

The MenABCWY vaccine candidate combines the antigenic components of GSKs two popular licensed meningococcal vaccines, Bexsero (MenB) and Menveo (MenACWY). The MenABCWY combination targets the five serogroups of the bacteria Neisseria meningitides (A, B, C, W, and Y), which is primarily responsible for most invasive meningococcal disease cases globally.

Per GSK, a potential approval of this 5-in-1 vaccine candidate could provide the broadest meningococcal serogroup coverage and lead to a simplified immunization schedule. The 5-in-1meningitis vaccine candidate has the potential to reduce the number of injections compared to current FDA-approved meningitis vaccines, as it has been designed to protect against all five vaccine-preventable serogroups with one combined product.

The BLA was based on data from a pivotal phase III study. The study met all its primary endpoints, including the non-inferiority of the vaccine candidate for all five Neisseria meningitides serogroups compared to Bexsero and Menveo in terms of an immune response.

GSKs stock has risen 6.9% in the past year against a decline of 17.6% for the industry.

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GSK boasts a broad vaccine portfolio that targets infectious diseases like meningitis, shingles, flu, polio and many more. GSK has more than 20 marketed vaccines in its portfolio. The company achieved strong vaccine growth of 25% at CER in 2023, driven by strong sales for its shingles vaccine, Shingrix and meningitis portfolio and exceptional contribution from the new respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, Arexvy.

The company expects continued strong sales of Shingrix in 2024, primarily driven by outside U.S. markets. The vaccine is now approved in 39 countries. Arexvy sales are expected to be strong in 2024, driven by further penetration in the U.S. market as well as early adoption from international launches. Over time, GSK expects Arexvy to generate more than 3 billion in annual sales.

GSK is also focusing on accelerating the vaccines pipeline, particularly the expanded use of the RSV vaccine, pentavalent vaccine and MenABCWY to drive long-term growth. It has a leading suite of vaccine platform technologies, including next-generation mRNA, multiple antigens presenting systems, as well as adjuvant systems.

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GSK currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

GSK PLC Sponsored ADR price-consensus-chart | GSK PLC Sponsored ADR Quote

Some better-ranked stocks in the healthcare sector are ANI Pharmaceuticals (ANIP), Entera Bio (ENTX) and ADMA Biologics (ADMA), sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) each. You can seethe complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

In the past 60 days, 2024 estimates for ANI Pharmaceuticals have improved from $4.06 per share to $4.43 per share. For 2025, earnings estimates have improved from $4.80 per share to $5.04 per share in the past 60 days. In the past year, shares of ANIP have risen 69.4%.

Earnings of ANI Pharmaceuticals beat estimates in each of the last four quarters, delivering a four-quarter average earnings surprise of 109.06 %.

In the past 60 days, the consensus estimate for Entera Bios 2024 loss has narrowed from 75 cents per share to 25 cents per share. In the past year, shares of ENTX have risen 168.5%.

ENTX beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed the mark once, delivering an average earnings surprise of 10.66%.

In the past 60 days, estimates for ADMA Biologics 2024 earnings per share have improved from 22 cents to 30 cents. Estimates for 2025 have increased from 32 cents to 50 cents. In the past year, shares of ADMA Biologics have risen 84.5%.

Earnings of ADMA Biologics beat estimates in three of the last four quarters while meeting the same once. ADMA delivered a four-quarter average earnings surprise of 85.0%.

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GSK Announces FDA Acceptance of New Meningococcal Jab BLA - Yahoo Finance

New research has found that Australias COVID-19 vaccination prevented almost 18 thousand deaths in New South Wales alone between 2021 and 2022. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Brenton Edwards.

It is likely Australias Covid-19 vaccination campaign prevented almost 18,000 deaths in NSW alone between 2021 and 2022, with the mortality rate in unvaccinated individuals almost eight times higher than those who were fully vaccinated, new research has found.

New research from RMIT University and Monash University found Australias Covid-19 vaccination campaign likely prevented the death of 17,760 people aged over 50 in NSW between August 2021 and July 2022.

The research used a data-driven counterfactual approach to ask what death rates from Covid-19 would have been like if no vaccine had been available, said Professor Adrian Esterman, chair of biostatistics at the University of South Australia.

He said the researchers, who focused on those aged 50 and over and only used data from NSW since access to full official Australian government datasets was not possible despite extensive efforts, found that unvaccinated individuals had 7.7 times the Covid-19 death rate compared to those with two or more doses.

This increased to 11.2 times the death rate when comparing the unvaccinated to those who had one or more booster shots, Professor Esterman said.

In the total absence of a vaccination program, they estimated that over the 48-week period, there would have been 21,250 Covid-related deaths six times the actual rate.

One mistake that vaccine sceptics keep bringing up is that the majority of Covid-related deaths are in those who have been vaccinated therefore the vaccines do not work, or even cause death.

The authors rightly point out that a fairer comparison is to look at the death rate in those unvaccinated compared to those vaccinated, which immediately shows how important the vaccination program has been in preventing Covid-19-associated deaths.

Professor Tony Blakely, epidemiologist and public health medicine specialist in the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Melbourne, said the studys number of estimated deaths averted was probably an underestimate, as higher vaccination rates would have had positive spillover effects of reducing transmission.

In future pandemics, we hope that vaccines will be good at both stopping you dying and stopping you transmitting the virus as this would reduce the health loss even more, he said.

That said, for this pandemic with the vaccines we had, an elimination strategy and delaying opening up until most of us had been vaccinated was (clearly) the least worst option we could have pursued.

The rest is here:

Covid vaccines saved thousands of lives - Yahoo News Australia

HPV, or human papillomavirus, is a common virus that can cause cancers. It is spread through intimate skin-to-skin contact. One can get HPV by having vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse with someone who has the virus, even if they dont exhibit signs or symptoms.

The Union health ministry is likely to incorporate HPV testing into the National Cancer Control Programme, to screen women for cervical cancer, this newspaper reported last week. Certain types of HPV lead to cervical cancer and India, in particular, has a population of 511.4 million women who are at risk of developing this cancer, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)'s 2023 Factsheet.

Current estimates indicate that every year 1,23,907 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 77,348 die from the disease. Cervical cancer ranks as the second most frequent cancer among women in India between 15 and 44 years of age. Nearly 5% of women in the general population are estimated to harbour cervical HPV-16/18 infection at a given time, and 83.2% of invasive cervical cancers are attributed to HPVs 16 or 18.

According to the US Centre for Disease Control, most HPV infections (9 out of 10) go away by themselves within two years. But sometimes, HPV infections will last longer and can cause cancers of the cervix, vagina, and vulva; penis; anus; back of the throat (called oropharyngeal cancer), including the base of the tongue and tonsils.

HPV vaccination is meant to prevent cancer-causing infections and precancers. Persons up to the age of 26 years should get the HPV vaccine if they were not fully vaccinated already and it is not recommended for anyone older than 26, as current clinical trial results suggest that the efficacy of the vaccine drops considerably after 25 years. HPV vaccination of adults provides less benefit because more people in this age range have been exposed to HPV already.

Children from ages 1112 years should get two doses of HPV vaccine, given 6 to 12 months apart. HPV vaccines can be given starting at age 9.

Dose number 1: 1112 years (can start at age 9); Dose number 2: 612 months after the first dose

Children who start the HPV vaccine series on or after their 15th birthday need three doses, given over 6 months.

Last year, the Serum Institute of India launched Cervavac, an India-made HPV vaccine priced at 2,200 for persons from nine through 26 years of age. In further impetus to the prevention of cervical cancer in India, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government will encourage HPV vaccination for girls in the age group of nine to 14 years while presenting the interim budget in February.

In the US, HPV infections and cervical precancers have dropped since 2006, when HPV vaccines were first used in the United States. Among teen girls, infections with HPV types that cause most HPV cancers and genital warts have dropped 88%. Among young adult women, infections have dropped 81%. Among vaccinated women, the percentage of cervical precancers has dropped by 40%. The protection provided by HPV vaccines lasts a long time. People who received HPV vaccines were followed for at least about 12 years, and their protection against HPV has remained high with no evidence of decreasing over time.

Over 15 years of data have shown that HPV vaccines are very safe and effective. Like all vaccines, scientists continue to monitor the HPV vaccines. Common side effects are mild and get better within a day or two and include pain, redness, or swelling in the arm where the shot was given; fever; dizziness or fainting (fainting after any vaccine, including the HPV vaccine, is more common among adolescents than others); nausea; headache or feeling tired; muscle or joint pain. As per available evidence, the vaccine does not cause fertility problems.

Rhythma Kaul, national deputy editor, health, analyses the impact of the most significant piece of news this week in the health sector

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Health Talk | Why HPV vaccines are an effective shield against cervical cancer - Hindustan Times

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Posted: 7 Hours Ago

Newfoundland and Labrador's top doctor is warning people to stay up to date on whooping cough vaccinations after a small increase in cases this year.

The province usually sees three to four cases of the disease annually. Up to 10 cases have been reported already since January, however, prompting the province's chief medical officer to raise the issue publicly.

The increase "generally means there's a little bit more circulating in the community than what's presenting for care and testing," Dr. Janice Fitzgerald said Tuesday.

While officials aren't overly concerned about a future spike in cases, Fitzgerald said, higher infection rates place infants in particularat risk.

Children under the age of one aren't yet old enough for the whooping cough vaccine and don't have immunity to the disease, Fitzgerald said. Infections in small children can be more severe and lead to pneumonia, neurological issues and hospitalization.

Fitzgerald said parents, grandparents and caregivers should check to ensure their vaccinations are up to date.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, causes a persistent nagging cough that's sometimes severe enough to cause vomiting. Vaccines for the disease are offered in early childhood, during high school and in adulthood. Booster shots should be given 10 years after the high school dose, Fitzgerald said.

"Immunity can wane over time," she said. "Pertussis does circulate on a regular basis in our community."

The small increase in cases isn't yet ringing alarm bells for undervaccination within the general population, she added, noting the province still has a vaccination rate over 90 per cent.

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Whooping cough cases up slightly in N.L., as officials warn about risks to infants - CBC.ca

Key facts

Measles is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus. It spreads easily when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes. It can cause severe disease, complications, and even death.

Measles can affect anyone but is most common in children.

Measles infects the respiratory tract and then spreads throughout the body. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and a rash all over the body.

Being vaccinated is the best way to prevent getting sick with measles or spreading it to other people. The vaccine is safe and helps your body fight off the virus.

Before the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred approximately every two to three years and caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.

An estimated 136 000 people died from measles in 2022 mostly children under the age of five years, despite the availability of a safe and cost-effective vaccine.

Accelerated immunization activities by countries, WHO, the Measles & Rubella Partnership (formerly the Measles & Rubella Initiative), and other international partners successfully prevented an estimated 57 million deaths between 20002022. Vaccination decreased an estimated measles deaths from 761 000 in 2000 to 136 000 in 2022.*

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic led to setbacks in surveillance and immunization efforts. The suspension of immunization services and declines in immunization rates and surveillance across the globe left millions of children vulnerable to preventable diseases like measles.

No country is exempt from measles, and areas with low immunization encourage the virus to circulate, increasing the likelihood of outbreaks and putting all unvaccinated children at risk.

We must regain progress and achieve regional measles elimination targets, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Immunization programs should be strengthened within primary healthcare, so efforts to reach all children with two measles vaccine doses should be accelerated. Countries should also implement robust surveillance systems to identify and close immunity gaps.

Symptoms of measles usually begin 1014 days after exposure to the virus. A prominent rash is the most visible symptom.

Early symptoms usually last 47 days. They include:

The rash begins about 718 days after exposure, usually on the face and upper neck. It spreads over about 3 days, eventually to the hands and feet. It usually lasts 56 days before fading.

Most deaths from measles are from complications related to the disease.

Complications can include:

If a woman catches measles during pregnancy, this can be dangerous for the mother and can result in her baby being born prematurely with a low birth weight.

Complications are most common in children under 5 years and adults over age 30. They are more likely in children who are malnourished, especially those without enough vitamin A or with a weak immune system from HIV or other diseases. Measles itself also weakens the immune system and can make the body forget how to protect itself against infections, leaving children extremely vulnerable.

Any non-immune person (not vaccinated or vaccinated but did not develop immunity) can become infected. Unvaccinated young children and pregnant persons are at highest risk of severe measles complications.

Measles is still common, particularly in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The overwhelming majority of measles deaths occur in countries with low per capita incomes or weak health infrastructures that struggle to reach all children with immunization.

Damaged health infrastructure and health services in countries experiencing or recovering from a natural disaster or conflict interrupt routine immunization and overcrowding in residential camps increases the risk of infection. Children with malnutrition or other causes of a weak immune system are at highest risk of death from measles.

Measles is one of the worlds most contagious diseases, spread by contact with infected nasal or throat secretions (coughing or sneezing) or breathing the air that was breathed by someone with measles. The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to two hours. For this reason, it is very infectious, and one person infected by measles can infect nine out of 10 of their unvaccinated close contacts. It can be transmitted by an infected person from four days prior to the onset of the rash to four days after the rash erupts.

Measles outbreaks can result in severe complications and deaths, especially among young, malnourished children. In countries close to measles elimination, cases imported from other countries remain an important source of infection.

There is no specific treatment for measles. Caregiving should focus on relieving symptoms, making the person comfortable and preventing complications.

Drinking enough water and treatments for dehydration can replace fluids lost to diarrhoea or vomiting. Eating a healthy diet is also important.

Doctors may use antibiotics to treat pneumonia and ear and eye infections.

All children or adults with measles should receive two doses of vitamin A supplements, given 24 hours apart. This restores low vitamin A levels that occur even in well-nourished children. It can help prevent eye damage and blindness. Vitamin A supplements may also reduce the number of measles deaths.

Community-wide vaccination is the most effective way to prevent measles. All children should be vaccinated against measles. The vaccine is safe, effective and inexpensive.

Children should receive two doses of the vaccine to ensure they are immune. The first dose is usually given at 9 months of age in countries where measles is common and 1215 months in other countries. A second dose should be given later in childhood, usually at 1518 months.

The measles vaccine is given alone or often combined with vaccines for mumps, rubella and/or varicella.

Routine measles vaccination, combined with mass immunization campaigns in countries with high case rates are crucial for reducing global measles deaths. The measles vaccine has been in use for about 60 years and costs less than US$ 1 per child. The measles vaccine is also used in emergencies to stop outbreaks from spreading. The risk of measles outbreaks is particularly high amongst refugees, who should be vaccinated as soon as possible.

Combining vaccines slightly increases the cost but allows for shared delivery and administration costs and importantly, adds the benefit of protection against rubella, the most common vaccine preventable infection that can infect babies in the womb.

In 2022, 74% of children received both doses of the measles vaccine, and about 83% of the world's children received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday. Two doses of the vaccine are recommended to ensure immunity and prevent outbreaks, as not all children develop immunity from the first dose.

Approximately 22 million infants missed at least one dose of measles vaccine through routine immunization in 2022.

In 2020, WHO and global stakeholders endorsed the Immunization Agenda 20212030. The Agenda aims to achieve the regional targets as a core indicator of impact, positioning measles as a tracer of a health systems ability to deliver essential childhood vaccines.

WHO published theMeasles and rubella strategic frameworkin 2020, establishing seven necessary strategic priorities to achieve and sustain the regional measles and rubella elimination goals.

During 20002022, supported by the Measles & Rubella Initiative (now the Measles and Rubella Partnership) and Gavi, measles vaccination prevented an estimated 57 million deaths; mostly in the WHO African Region and Gavi-supported countries.

Without sustained attention, hard-fought gains can easily be lost. Where children are unvaccinated, outbreaks occur. Based on current trends of measles vaccination coverage and incidence, theWHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE)concluded that measles elimination is under threat, as the disease resurged in numerous countries that achieved, or were close to achieving, elimination.

WHO continues to strengthen theGlobal Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network(GMRLN) to ensure timely diagnosis of measles and track the virus spread to assist countries in coordinating targeted vaccination activities and reduce deaths from this vaccine-preventable disease.

The IA2030 Measles & Rubella Partnership

The Immunization Agenda 2030 Measles & Rubella Partnership(M&RP) is a partnership led by the American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance, the Bill and Melinda French Gates Foundation, UNICEF and WHO, to achieve the IA2030 measles and rubella specific targets. Launched in 2001, as the Measles and Rubella Initiative, the revitalized Partnership is committed to ensuring no child dies from measles or is born with congenital rubella syndrome. The Partnership helps countries plan, fund and measure efforts to permanently stop measles and rubella

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Measles - World Health Organization (WHO)

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