Crumbling health systems and misinformation fuelling global surge in measles, scientists warn
Declining living standards and online misinformation is fuelling a global surge in measles, experts have warned, decades after the spread of the disease was curbed by vaccination programmes.
Dr Ben Kasstan-Dabush, a medical anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, warned that a “generational decline in living standards” was among the factors behind declining immunisation rates across the world.
He also blamed a “vicious” austerity programme introduced by former chancellor George Osborne for a decline in NHS vaccination rates in the UK.
His comments followed a recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) warning that the rise in measles cases is a consequence of declining vaccine rates – and that other diseases prevented by vaccination could be next.
“It’s a global story,” Dr Kasstan-Dabush told The Independent. “The issue of declining vaccination coverage can’t really be separated from the bigger picture of declining standards of child and adult health.”
The UK alone has had an 831 per cent increase in the last decade. Data from the UK Health Security Agency reveals that 847 cases were recorded between January to November this year, while in 2015 there were just 91 cases.
Last year was one of the highest for measles in the UK, as the health agency recorded 2,911 confirmed cases.
An estimated 95,000 people worldwide, mostly children, died from the virus last year, the WHO report said. In 2024, there were 59 countries experiencing large or disruptive outbreaks, almost three times as many in 2021. A quarter of these countries had previously eliminated measles.
But perhaps the starkest and most concerning revelation in the report was the fact that as many as 30 million children are not fully protected by vaccination.
Only 84 per cent of children globally received their first dose of measles vaccine last year – and just 76 per cent received the crucial second dose.
The decline in vaccination rates has been blamed on growing levels of misinformation online, which became particularly prominent during the mass anti-vaccination movements of the Covid pandemic.
“Misinformation around vaccination does exist and does proliferate,” said Dr Kasstan-Dabush. “Misinformation is just being spewed from the highest political echelons of the United States.”
But combatting this misinformation has been far more difficult in an era of cuts to public funding, he says. Looking at the UK in particular, he says budget cuts at both a local authority level and a national health level have seen vital communication and engagement work around vaccinations suffer.
Dr Kasstan-Dabush said: “We can talk about misinformation, but we have to understand how can we physically do something about it? How can we address it in this context of austerity that, to be honest, never really left us.”
