The World Health Organization has issued an urgent warning that measles cases are surging across Europe due to declining vaccination rates and pandemic-related disruptions, prompting calls for targeted catch-up campaigns and strengthened surveillance.
The World Health Organization has warned that measles is once again gaining ground in Europe as pandemic-era disruptions leave too many children without full protection. In February 2023, the agency said the region had seen a sharp rise in cases since early 2022, driven by immunity gaps and missed vaccinations, and called for immediate, targeted catch-up campaigns to find children and adults who had fallen behind on routine immunisation.
WHO said the warning signs were already visible in the numbers. After just 159 cases were recorded across 22 countries in 2021, the tally rose to 904 cases in 27 countries in 2022. The agency said countries should aim for at least 95% coverage with two doses of a measles-containing vaccine to stop transmission and prevent major outbreaks. It also stressed that measles surveillance must be strong enough to spot suspected cases quickly and trigger a rapid response.
The concern was not limited to a single year. By July 2023, WHO said the European Region had reached 94% average coverage for the third dose of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine and 93% for the first dose of measles vaccine in 2022, but many countries still had not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The agency said 300,000 infants in the region received no scheduled immunisations in their first year of life, while measles cases kept climbing, with more than 900 reported by April 2023.
The problem worsened later in 2023. In December, WHO said measles cases in the European Region had risen 30-fold compared with the previous year, with 20,918 hospitalisations and five deaths reported by October. It linked the surge to lower vaccine uptake between 2020 and 2022, when the first-dose coverage for measles vaccine fell from 96% in 2019 to 93% in 2022, and said more than 1.8 million infants missed measles vaccination over that period. WHO added that falling public-health restrictions and the return of travel increased the risk of imported infections spreading in under-vaccinated communities.
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