The Americas are measles free.
The region is the first in the world to have eradicated the disease, according to Pan-American Health Organization officials who spoke during a media briefing.
“Bye-bye measles,” said PAHO director Carissa F. Etienne, MD, during the briefing.
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In 1994, countries across the Americas collectively declared their determination to rid the region of endemic measles transmission by 2000, agreeing to implement PAHO-recommended surveillance and immunization strategies, including the introduction and expanded use of the triple viral vaccine (MMR) against measles, mumps, and rubella.
In 2007, an expert international committee began verifying absence of the disease regionally. Although the disease was largely thought to have been wiped out in the Americas by 2002, officials postponed making an announcement until elimination of both measles and rubella could be declared jointly. An outbreak of measles in 2013 thwarted this plan, with the last confirmed case of reported endemic measles in the Americas not occurring until July 2015 in Brazil. In all, five vaccine-preventable diseases have been eliminated in the region, according to PAHO: smallpox in 1971, polio in 1994, and rubella and congenital rubella syndrome in 2015.
“The tasks of verification was not without its challenges, and countries overcame a number of geopolitical difficulties, including [maintaining] high vaccination coverage for very mobile populations, limited – and often no – access to deprived areas, and the presence of conflict situations,” Merceline Dahl-Regis, MD, the Bahamas’ chief medical officer and chair of PAHO’s elimination verification committee, said during the media briefing. She credited the expansion of national immunization programs, the “stellar work” conducted by various national commissions, and excellent communication between the nations’ respective governments, local and federal, as critical to the success of the effort. Also credited by other officials is PAHO’s revolving vaccine fund, which provides five-dose vials of MMR for about 1 dollar each.
Globally, since use of the MMR vaccine began, there has been a 95% drop in cases over a 35-year period, from 4.5 million cases in 1980 to approximately 244,700 in 2015. At the time the initiative to eradicate the disease was announced, measles was among the top five most common killers of children under the age of 5 years worldwide. The vaccine-preventable disease took the lives of 114,900 children globally in 2014, according to the World Health Organization. Worldwide, about 85% of children are vaccinated against measles by their first birthday, up from 73% in 2000.
Keeping vaccination rates high and immediately reporting any imported cases of the disease are essential to maintaining this milestone, according to PAHO officials.
“Importation of measles from other parts of the world into the Americas will continue, and we must be ready to detect and respond quickly, but today, let us celebrate,” Capt. Mary Agocs, MD, a Red Cross senior adviser to the elimination initiative, said during the briefing.
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