Fighting measles

Global deaths from measles, which only a decade ago killed millions of children each year, plummeted by 40 per cent to an estimated 530,000 in 2003, with the largest reduction occurring in Africa, thanks to mass vaccination campaigns. To this achievement must be added an unknown number of children who have been spared debilitating illness, including life-long disabilities like blindness and brain damage. As measles wards shut down all over Africa, hard-pressed hospital budgets are being freed up to save children from other diseases.

In the years 1999 to 2003, Supply Division shipped over 637 million doses of measles vaccines. During 2004 alone, 139 million doses were procured for 62 countries around the world.

The WHO/UNICEF strategy for sustainable measles mortality reduction has thus proved highly successful and is the model upon which other child killers such as malaria are being tackled.