We’ve seen recent spikes in measles infections.
Some European countries, including the UK, lost their measles-free status and many developing countries, especially parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania are seeing frequent outbreaks.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is experiencing a protracted outbreak of over a quarter of a million cases and more than 5,000 deaths, mainly in children under-five.
And the reason for this measles upturn?
Declining uptake of measles vaccination. You need to immunise over 90% of a population to protect it from measles outbreaks. In DRC immunisation rates are less than 60%.
Killer virus destroyed by UK lab
And there’s a potential hidden danger of poor vaccine coverage.
Measles belongs to a group of highly related viruses called morbilliviruses, which can be found in various mammals, and these are adept at jumping from one host species to another.
The common ancestor of measles virus is thought to have been a virus circulating in cattle which, according to Louise Cosby, emeritus, honorary professor at the Wellcome Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, “probably jumped into humans when cattle were domesticated thousands of years ago”.
“There are also historical records which suggest that canine distemper virus – or CDV – might have arisen from human measles in the Americas, following one or more human-to-dog spill-overs during extensive measles outbreaks in indigenous people, who were exposed to the virus for the first time when they came into contact with European explorers,” she explained.
A cross-species spill-over is the transmission of a pathogen from one vertebrate species to another.
