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A child is given a measles vaccination in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Photo: JUNIOR KANNAH / AFP
An analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Health Authority (CDC) shows: Because many measles vaccinations did not take place in Corona year 2020, the risk of outbreaks has increased significantly.
Worldwide, 22 million young children did not receive a primary vaccination against measles last year, three million more than in the previous year, reported WHO and CDC.
That is the biggest increase in two decades.
In 2020, only 70 percent of children received a necessary second dose for full vaccination protection.
According to the WHO, 95 percent of people worldwide would have to be fully vaccinated to prevent outbreaks entirely.
Corona makes prevention more difficult
The reason for the lack of vaccinations are the corona restrictions in many countries and the busy health staff.
As a result, many preventive examinations had to be neglected.
The number of reported measles cases decreased significantly.
But the WHO and CDC assume that data were not collected or only insufficiently collected in many places.
Planned vaccination campaigns in 23 countries had to be postponed due to Corona.
Around 60,000 deaths from measles were reported worldwide in 2020.
It is estimated that measles vaccination campaigns have prevented more than 30 million deaths globally in the past 20 years.
atb / dpa