Progress towards regional measles elimination – worldwide, 2000–2016

The Fourth United Nations Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4), adopted in 2000, set a target to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015. One of the indicators towards this target was measles vaccination coverage. In 2010, the World Health Assembly (WHA) set 3 milestones for measles control by 2015: 1) to increase routine coverage with the first dose of a measles-containing vaccine (MCV1) to ≥90% at national level and ≥80% in every district; 2) to reduce global annual measles incidence to <5 cases per million population; and 3) to reduce global measles mortality by 95% or more from the 2000 estimates.2, 3 In 2012, WHA endorsed the Global Vaccine Action Plan with the objective to eliminate measles in 4 WHO regions by 2015 and in 5 regions by 2020. Countries in all 6 WHO regions have adopted goals for measles elimination by, or before, 2020. Measles elimination is defined as the absence of endemic measles virus transmission in a region or other defined geographical area for ≥12 months, in the presence of a well-performing surveillance system. This report updates a previous report and describes progress towards global measles control milestones and regional measles elimination goals during 2000–2016.