IT KILLS a million children a year. And that鈥檚 with three-quarters of them
vaccinated. If there were no vaccine against measles, would four times as many
die? No, the toll would be far higher. Contagion is a beast that swells the more
victims it has.
It seems unthinkable that we could lose the measles vaccine. Yet we might.
Just as bacteria mutate and become resistant to antibiotics, so viruses mutate
to outwit a child鈥檚 vaccine-induced immunity. Both these pharmacological weapons
must be used wisely to stop their targets evolving resistance. While there is no
sign yet that any measles virus has completely escaped the power of the vaccine,
there are growing fears that it may be able to
(see 鈥淢onster in the making鈥�).
The faster we get everyone vaccinated, the less likely this is to happen.
So it is both good and bad news that the World Health Organization wants to
halve measles deaths by 2005. Good because the WHO, long hostage to impossible
鈥渉ealth for all鈥� sloganeering, is finally adopting achievable goals. Bad,
because halving the death rate is all it thinks is achievable.
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We must do better. The rich world is given to focusing on rare and sometimes
hypothetical side effects of vaccines. Of course they should be as safe as
possible, but the real enemy is the disease. Measles kills. Let鈥檚 stop it while
we still can.