Maldives and Sri Lanka have become the first two countries in the South-East Asia region to eliminate both measles and rubella ahead of the 2023 target.
World Health Organisation South-East Asia’s Regional Director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh on July 8, 2020 announced this achievement after the 5th meeting of the regional verification commission for measles and rubella elimination, held virtually.
What is criteria?
A country is verified as having eliminated measles and rubella when there is no evidence of endemic transmission for over three years by a well-performing surveillance system.
Maldives reported its last endemic case of measles in 2009 and of rubella in October 2015, while Sri Lanka reported last endemic case of measles in May 2016 and of rubella in March 2017.
Member countries of WHO South-East Asia Region had in September last year set 2023 as target for elimination of measles and rubella, revising the goal of the flagship programme that since 2014 had focused on measles elimination and rubella control.
Bhutan, Korea and Timor-Leste are other countries in the Region who have eliminated measles.
Rubella and Measles
Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by a virus.
Rubella is sometimes referred to as “German measles”.
The rubella and measles viruses are unrelated and are from different virus families. However, they do have some similarities.
Both viruses are spread from person to person by coughing and sneezing.
Rubella and Measles can result in fever and skin rash after infection and survive only in human hosts.
Measles and rubella can be prevented with vaccines that can be delivered together as a combined measles-rubella (MR) vaccine, or combined with vaccines against mumps (MMR) and varicella (chickenpox) (MMRV).
Rubella is a viral infection that affects unvaccinated children and young adults.
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