Many MindedMeasles cases in young children are climbing again after decades of decline
A global study by the GBD 2023 Measles Collaborators, published in Nature Medicine in 2026, reports that measles in children has been rising since 2020. That reverses a decline that had run for several decades. The study estimates that nearly 16 million children under five caught measles in 2023, and about 118,000 of them died.
The researchers link the rise to falling vaccination rates after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted public-health programmes and their funding. They also found that children in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are less likely than children elsewhere to receive two doses of measles vaccine.
This matters for abundance because measles vaccination has been one of the cheapest and most widely available forms of disease control. When delivery systems and funding falter, a protection that was close to free and close to universal becomes patchier, and children in the poorest regions lose it first. That is a setback for health, and it also adds strain to care systems that must treat preventable illness.
The limits are real. Our source is Nature's short research highlight, and most of it sits behind a paywall. The figures come from a single modelling study, and the summary gives no country-level breakdown beyond the vaccine-coverage gap in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Readers who want the detail should go to Nature and the original paper.
Source: Nature