UK Loses Measles-Free Status as Cases Hit 3,681 in 2024
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- The UK lost its WHO measles-free status last month after endemic transmission resumed in 2018 and became continuous from 2023, with cases rising from 63 in 2022 to 481 in 2023, 3,681 in 2024 (2,911 in England), and 957 last year.
- Saijal Ladd, a 53-year-old NHS pharmacist, spent a week in hospital a decade ago with measles that caused her liver and lungs to fail; she had been born in rural Kenya in 1972, before the WHO's Expanded Programme on Immunisation reached there in 1980.
- Ezra Barrett, a two-year-old from Walsall too young for MMR, was hospitalised on high-flow oxygen during the Birmingham outbreak and is now being monitored for delayed speech and potential hearing loss, with his mother fearing SSPE.
- UK MMR coverage in 2024 stood at 92.3% for the first dose and 84.4% for the second—well below the 95% herd immunity threshold—with Hackney recording just 65.3% for the first dose.
- The UK switched to the MMRV vaccine last month, adding varicella protection and moving the second dose from age three years and four months to 18 months; two doses give immunity to about 99% of recipients.
- Two UK deaths occurred in 2025, and in 2024 a child plus four adults died including one from SSPE, a fatal neurological condition that can emerge up to eight years after infection in roughly one per 50,000 cases.
- Dr Vanessa Saliba of the UKHSA identified compromised vaccine accessibility in high-deprivation areas as the bigger driver of declining uptake, while Dr Ben Kasstan-Dabush linked the trend to austerity-era cuts to health visitors and Sure Start centres since the 2013-14 NHS restructure.
Why it matters: With MMR uptake well below the 95% herd immunity threshold and two UK deaths already in 2025, measles is now circulating continuously and threatening the country's disease-elimination standing. Reversing the trend requires more than countering misinformation—UKHSA and London School of Hygiene experts point to post-austerity health visitor cuts and GP access gaps as the structural driver that policymakers must address.
Ask SkimNews
