The World Health Organization and UNICEF presented the results of a joint analysis of measles incidence in the WHO European Region (in addition to European countries, including Russia and Turkey, it includes Israel, Transcaucasia and Central Asia). According to their data, in 2024, the number of cases of infection doubled and reached a maximum since 1997. In 2024, 127,352 cases of measles were registered in the region (in 2016, for example, there were only 4,440), more than 40 percent of them were in children under five years of age. More than half of the cases required hospitalization, 38 ended in death. The largest number of cases was detected in Romania and Kazakhstan.
The WHO European Region accounted for a third of all measles cases worldwide in 2024. Last year, WHO and UNICEF estimated that half a million children in the region did not receive the first dose of vaccine against the infection. The worst vaccination situation was in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Romania. Almost simultaneously, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control released a report showing that the number of measles cases in the European Union and the European Economic Area increased more than 13-fold in a year.