Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) – Despite the availability of an effective relatively cheap vaccine to prevent measles in the last forty years more than 30 million people have been infected. Every year more than 750.000, children under five and more than half of them in Africa, die of measles. Every day in the world two thousand children die of measles. It costs less than one dollar to vaccinate a child and millions of cases have been prevented by vaccination.
The objective adopted by a Global meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, which has just ended, is to reduce è the mortality rate inflicted by measles and to strengthen the immunity system
It is unacceptable that children continue to die of a preventable disease. At a Special Session on Children the UN in 2002 General Assembly established a goal of reducing by 50% the 1999 total of 875.000 deaths due to complications in measles by 2005 (AP) (17/10/2003 Fides Service; lines: 13; Parole:164)
