Let us get a handle on this. I just looked up the population of Europe for 2018 on Google and discovered a figure of 738 million, so the chances of dying of measles last year in Europe was less than 1 in 10 million. While it seems unlikely that vaccination can ever eliminate measles - notably because the vaccine sheds - could this just possibly be a distortion of policy?
A couple of other observation regarding Jacqui Thornton's article [1]: (a) the number of cases is likely be an artefact of the drive to identify them; (b) 61% hospitalisation does not sound credible.
[1] Jacqui Thornton, 'Measles cases in Europe tripled from 2017 to 2018', BMJ 2019; 364 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l634 (Published 07 February 2019)
Rapid Response:
The WHO and the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf
Let us get a handle on this. I just looked up the population of Europe for 2018 on Google and discovered a figure of 738 million, so the chances of dying of measles last year in Europe was less than 1 in 10 million. While it seems unlikely that vaccination can ever eliminate measles - notably because the vaccine sheds - could this just possibly be a distortion of policy?
A couple of other observation regarding Jacqui Thornton's article [1]: (a) the number of cases is likely be an artefact of the drive to identify them; (b) 61% hospitalisation does not sound credible.
[1] Jacqui Thornton, 'Measles cases in Europe tripled from 2017 to 2018', BMJ 2019; 364 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l634 (Published 07 February 2019)
Competing interests: No competing interests