THE failure of parents to vaccinate their children has contributed to the biggest surge in measles cases Europe has seen in a decade, according to the World Health Organization.
Across the 53 countries in the region, there have been at least 37 deaths and more than 41,000 cases in the first half of this year, already nearly twice the 23,927 cases recorded in the whole of 2016.
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More than half this year鈥檚 cases have been in Ukraine, where measles vaccination coverage has been plummeting over the past decade. In 2016, vaccination rates dropped to 50 per cent. The WHO warns that as soon as fewer than 95 per cent of eligible children receive vaccination, measles can spread rapidly.
England has seen 807 cases this year, 281 of them in London. Before vaccination began in 1968, the UK reported roughly half a million cases a year.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淩ecord measles outbreak in Europe鈥�
