Devex: Measles — the canary in the coalmine
Seth Berkely, CEO of the Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

“…[A]ttention must focus on where measles outbreaks still occur — not just because of the tens of thousands of lives the disease claims each year, but because these represent the reservoirs of infectious disease for the world. To do this we need to stop focusing just on catch-up campaigns whenever there is a flare up, and instead concentrate our resources on improving routine immunization to boost population immunity against multiple diseases, and supplement this with campaigns as needed. And in the meantime, whenever and wherever an outbreak occurs we need to treat it as a warning of a potential vulnerability in the preparedness of those countries. In global health security terms, measles is the proverbial canary in the coal mine” (4/27).