Measles cases rose by more than 20% worldwide last year: Here's why

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FILE - A child being treated for measles in Afghanistan (Photo by Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

More than 10 million people had the measles in 2023, marking a 20% increase in cases of the highly contagious – and preventable – viral infection.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a decrease in global immunizations is driving the surge. The CDC says an estimated 83% of children received their first dose of the two-dose measles vaccine last year, but only 74% received the second dose.

Vaccination rates need to reach 95% to prevent outbreaks "and protect populations from one of the world's most contagious human viruses."

"Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization Director-General, said in a prepared statement. "To save even more lives and stop this deadly virus from harming the most vulnerable, we must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live."

Vaccination gaps were to blame for large or disruptive measles outbreaks in 57 countries last year – a 60% increase from 36 countries in 2022. The outbreaks impacted all regions worldwide except the Americas.

Measles death toll

Roughly 107,500 people died of measles in 2023. That’s an 8% decrease from 2022, but the CDC says "far too many children are still dying from this preventable disease." The CDC attributes the slight reduction in deaths to the cases being in countries and regions where children have better access to nutritious food and health services.

Measles long-term health effects

According to the CDC, serious health effects can linger after a case of the measles, and some of those can last the rest of your life.

Infants and young children are at greatest risk of serious complications from measles. Those complications include:

Blindness
Pneumonia
Encephalitis (an infection causing brain swelling and potentially brain damage)

"The measles vaccine is our best protection against the virus, and we must continue to invest in efforts to increase access," CDC Director Mandy Cohen said in a prepared statement.

Could RFK Jr.'s HHS nomination lower vaccine rates?

Trump selects RFK Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary

President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting a man whose views public health officials have decried as dangerous in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research, Medicare and Medicaid. LiveNOW from FOX host Christy Matino spoke to Dr. Richard Besser, Preesident and CEO of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC on the latest.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has insisted that he is not anti-vaccine, saying he only wants vaccines to be rigorously tested, but he also has shown opposition to a wide range of immunizations. Kennedy said in a 2023 podcast interview that "There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective" and told Fox News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to "resist" CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.

No medical intervention is risk-free. But doctors and researchers have proven that risks from disease are generally far greater than the risks from vaccines.

Vaccines have been proven to be safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades — they are considered among the most effective public health measures in history.