With a “national incident” over measles in the UK, what’s the situation in Europe?
Europe is experiencing an “alarming rise” in measles cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday, with a more than 30-fold rise across the region in 2023.
More than 30,000 measles cases were reported by 40 of the WHO European region’s 53 member states between January and October last year, compared to 941 cases in 2022.
The increase in the number of cases is compounded by the hospitalisation of 21,000 people and five measles-related deaths.
Unfortunately, a fair number of people in medicine-adjacent fields that have less requirements on having knowledge on biology and vaccines, such as nurses and pharmacists, are anti-vaxxers.