Measles cases, deaths and outbreaks jumped dramatically between 2021 and 2022, a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows.
The research, published Friday (Nov. 17) in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), revealed an 18% rise in the estimated number of measles cases between 2021 and 2022. That’s an increase from about 7.8 million cases to 9.2 million. Measles deaths increased by 43% globally, from 95,000 in 2021 to 136,200 in 2022. The number of countries reporting “large or disruptive outbreaks” of measles jumped from 22 in 2021 to 37 in 2022, marking a 68% increase.