Editor’s Note:
The continuing measles outbreak in the U.S. – traced to DisneyLand park in California and active in several U.S. states – continues to generate significant public debate about vaccines, hesitancy, parental responsibility, mandates, and the U.S. federal and state government’s role in assuring immunization against infectious diseases generally. Please see Journal Watch and Media Watch below to see additional content and commentary on these issues.

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PAHO: Recent measles outbreaks point to gaps in elimination efforts in the Americas
PAHO/WHO urges stepped-up surveillance and other measures to prevent the spread of measles cases imported from other regions
Washington, D.C., 10 February 2015 (PAHO/WHO) — Recent measles outbreaks in the United States and Brazil suggest that immunization rates in some areas have dropped below levels needed to prevent the spread of cases imported into the Americas, Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) experts said today.

“Thanks to high levels of immunization, the Americas have been on track for more than a decade to be formally declared free of measles,” said Dr. Cuauhtemoc Ruiz, head of PAHO/WHO’s immunization program. “Maintaining high levels of vaccine coverage is key to preventing and halting outbreaks and to protect our populations from the constant threat of imported cases.”

Measles has been considered eliminated from the Americas since 2002, due to the absence of endemic transmission of the disease. An international verification committee has been compiling evidence to support a formal declaration of the region as measles-free. This would make the Americas the world’s first region to eliminate measles, in line with its similar achievements in eliminating smallpox in the 1970s and polio in the 1990s. Currently the region is also on track to be certified as free of rubella.

All these achievements have been the result of the region’s success in achieving high levels of immunization, through routine immunization programs and mass vaccination campaigns such as the annual Vaccination Week in the Americas, which PAHO/WHO has spearheaded for the past 13 years .

Now, measles elimination “is facing major challenges, with several ongoing importations of measles in some countries,” PAHO/WHO said in an epidemiological alert distributed yesterday to member countries across the region. The alert urges countries to strengthen measles surveillance activities and to “take appropriate measures to protect residents in the Americas against measles and rubella.”…

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WHO Fact Sheet: Measles
10 February 2015