Anti-vax fears drive a measles outbreak in Europe

EACH year, as the summer winds down across Europe, so do measles cases—which tend to peak in late spring. August is, therefore, a good time to take stock of the measles season for the year. The tally for Europe, published on August 20th by the World Health Organisation, shows that cases in the first six months of 2018 exceeded the annual total for each of the past five years. About half of the 41,000 cases this year were in Ukraine. Infection rates also jumped in Serbia, Greece and Georgia. In recent years big outbreaks have erupted in Italy, Romania, France and Germany.

None of this is a surprise. In the past decade, measles-vaccination rates in some European countries have often fallen below those in parts of Africa. Italy, France and Serbia, for example, have lower child-vaccinations rates than Burundi, Rwanda and Senegal. In some years, vaccine shortages were to blame, especially in parts of eastern Europe. Both Ukraine and Serbia have had irregular supplies of the MMR vaccine (...