Morning Briefing

The number of deaths from measles fell about 74 percent between 2000 and 2010, from slightly more than 535,000 in 2000 to an estimated 139,200 people worldwide in 2010, "missing an internationally agreed target for a 90 percent fall mainly because of low vaccine coverage in India and Africa where the virus kills tens of thousands a year," Reuters reports. A study led by the WHO and involving researchers from Penn State University and the CDC, published on Tuesday in the Lancet, "found that despite rapid progress, regular measles outbreaks in Africa and slow implementation of disease control in India were major concerns and led to the target being missed," the news agency writes (Kelland, 4/24). According to the Associated Press/Seattle Times, "the figures come with a big grain of salt [because] scientists only had solid data for 65 countries," and "[f]or the 128 others, they used modeling to come up with their estimates" (Cheng, 4/23). "[E]xperts say increasing vaccination rates to above 95 percent worldwide and keeping them up is the only way to eradicate measles," according to Reuters (4/24).