South Africa has had more than 10 000 reported cases of measles and rubella this year, with children between the ages of five and nine making up more than half of these cases, Cape {town} Etc reports.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases of South Africa (NICD), it is the largest amount of measles and rubella cases in South Africa since 2015.
The NICD surveyed cases of measles and rubella from 1 January to 16 November this year, stating that there were 626 measles cases and 10 137 rubella cases throughout the country in 2024.
While rubella circulation has decreased in the Western Cape Province, it has increased in the North West Province. Other provinces in the country have continued to have high rubella positivity rates, including Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape.
Gauteng had the highest reported cases of measles and rubella, with 285 cases for measles and 2 603 cases for rubella.
Measles usually affects children in the age groups of 1-4 years and 5-9 years, followed by 10-14 years, according to the NICD.
‘Most children reported with measles infection were among age groups that should have been vaccinated during the measles vaccination campaign in 2023,’ the institute stated.
‘Dual laboratory confirmed measles and rubella cases have increased in areas where rubella circulation has increased, having an impact on the number of reported measles cases,’ they added.
The NICD further stated that a reason for the observed increase was that many children entered 2024 without immunity to rubella, either through vaccination or prior exposure to the virus.
The rubella vaccine was introduced into the Expanded Programme on Immunisation in 2024, which caused a limited number of children to have been vaccinated. Children who were not vaccinated and did not have prior exposure to rubella have remained susceptible to infection.
‘The natural transmission of rubella was also interrupted by the non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. These interventions led to reduced exposure to the rubella virus, resulting in limited immunity among children, thus increasing their susceptibility to rubella in 2024,’ the NICD stated.
‘The seasonal increase has now exposed the many susceptible children to rubella infection and resulted in the surge in cases that we have observed,’ the NICD added.
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