Notice to Readers
Recommendations from a Meeting on the Feasibility of Global Measles
Eradication
During July 9-10, 1996, the World Health Organization (WHO),
the Pan American Health Organization, and CDC cosponsored a meeting
to review recent progress in controlling measles and to discuss the
feasibility of global measles eradication. Participants included
representatives from each WHO regional office, U.S. academic
medical institutions, the Council of State and Territorial
Epidemiologists, local health departments, and several state public
health laboratories.
Country and regional presentations documented tremendous
recent progress in worldwide measles control and increasing
interest in pursuing global measles eradication. Six principal
conclusions and recommendations resulted from the meeting:
Worldwide measles eradication is feasible using currently
available vaccines and should be achievable within the next
10-15
years;
Single-dose strategies are not adequate to achieve eradication,
and intensive efforts are needed to achieve adequate levels of
population immunity;
Surveillance for measles, which must guide all efforts to
control measles, must be based on clinical findings suggestive
of
measles;
Laboratory diagnosis will become increasingly important as
control of measles improves, and molecular epidemiologic
studies,
which require measles virus isolates, will be increasingly used
to
track transmission of measles;
Measles outbreaks represent an opportunity to build the
political will necessary to implement appropriate prevention
strategies and must be well understood to refine prevention
strategies; and
The major obstacles to measles eradication are perceptual,
political, and financial. Considerable efforts are needed to
change
the incorrect perception that, in many industrialized countries,
measles is a mild illness.
International consensus and commitment and a global plan of
action are essential to facilitate coordination between countries,
donors, technical agencies, and international organizations to
assure that activities are efficiently conducted. In addition,
polio-eradication efforts need to be strengthened in countries with
endemic poliovirus transmission to ensure that the introduction of
measles-elimination activities sustains the polio-eradication
initiative.
The report of the meeting is available in WHO's Weekly
Epidemiological Record (1) from the World Wide Web at
http://www.who.ch/wer/wer_home.htm or from WHO, Distribution and
Sales, 20 Avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland; fax: 41 22
791 4857. Additional information about the progress in controlling
measles will be provided in an MMWR Recommendations and Reports
during the first quarter of 1997.
Reference
World Health Organization. Expanded Programme on Immunization
(EPI). Meeting on advances in measles elimination: conclusions and
recommendations. Wkly Epidemiol Rec 1996;71:305-9.
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