Health authorities are encouraging parents to vaccinate their children after a child reportedly died of measles in the United Kingdom.
Officials from Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, where the child was reportedly receiving care, said measles cases have been rising in the area due to declining immunisation rates.
Measles is one of the world’s contagious diseases, and it can easily take hold in communities with more unvaccinated people.
“Please protect yourself and vulnerable children and young people by ensuring you are fully vaccinated,” a hospital statement read.
The child’s death was first reported by The Sunday Times, and their age and gender are not yet known. But the news comes amid a surge in measles cases in both the UK and mainland Europe in recent years.
England has reported more than 500 cases this year, mostly in children aged 10 or younger.
The country last recorded a measles death in 2024, among a young person with other medical conditions. There were more than 2,900 measles cases last year, including about 1,700 among children aged 10 or younger.
Meanwhile, last year was the worst year for measles in Europe and Central Asia in nearly three decades. So far this year , about 6,200 measles cases have been reported in the European Union.
Most measles cases are mild or moderately severe, causing a rash, runny nose, sneezing, coughing, fever, and sore eyes. But it can also cause serious complications, such as blindness and brain swelling, and can be fatal in some cases.
Babies who are too young to be vaccinated, pregnant women, and those with weakened immune systems are at higher risk of severe illness from measles.
“Measles is very contagious and if the virus is circulating in the community because of low vaccination rates, sooner or later it will find its way to kids who are already unwell, where the infection can be catastrophic,” Ian Jones, a virology professor at the University of Reading, said in a statement.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared measles eliminated in the UK in 2017, but it lost that status two years later as the virus resurged across Europe.
About 95 per cent of a community must be immunised against measles to prevent outbreaks among unvaccinated people, but in 2022 only 85.2 per cent of UK residents were fully vaccinated.
Health authorities blame pandemic-era disruptions to health care, as well as rising vaccine hesitancy, for the low vaccination rates.
In some ways, the measles vaccine, which was first introduced in the 1960s, may be a victim of its own success. Two doses are about 99 per cent effective at preventing illness.
“Once it became rare after universal vaccination was implemented, many people forgot about measles,” Adam Finn, a professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol, said in a statement.
The recent death “may be the only way that everybody is reminded that it is important to prevent this entirely preventable infection”.
