28th January 2026
The World Health Organization has announced that the UK has lost its measles elimination status.
Doctors, public health experts and local councils said the WHO’s decision reflected the country’s reducing uptake of the MMR vaccination – which they linked to vaccine hesitancy and parents’ difficulty in accessing reliable information and getting appointments for their child to be immunised, in addition to poverty which goes hand in hand with low uptake.
Professor Helen Bedford, Professor of Children’s Health, Population, Policy and Practice Research and Teaching Department at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, and iHV Expert Adviser: Immunisations, said:
“Sadly, it comes as no surprise that the UK has lost its measles elimination status. To achieve elimination requires very high, sustained, uptake levels of two doses of a measles containing vaccine, but because measles is so highly infectious, any decline in uptake results in outbreaks.
“In the UK, vaccination uptake overall is below the 95% target, with significant variation between areas and social groups. These inequalities are increasing. In some parts of London, almost a half of five-years-olds remain unprotected against this potentially serious infection. As a result, over the past few years in there have been thousands of cases of measles and two deaths in UK.
“Health visitors are ideally placed to discuss vaccination with their families, and to remind them when vaccines are overdue. In the UK we are fortunate to have ready access to a safe and highly effective vaccine to provide our children with protection against this potentially devastating infection.”
The change to the elimination status was based on the spread of cases in 2024 when there were 3,600 suspected cases.
The World Health Organization said it no longer classified Britain as having eliminated measles because the disease had become re-established.
The UK achieved measles elimination in 2016, but this was short-lived with endemic transmission re-established due to outbreaks linked to a measles resurgence across Europe in 2018.
In 2021, the UK regained measles elimination status based on a significant decline in measles circulation globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, measles activity started to increase in the UK and globally in 2023. Based on data submitted for 2024, when the UK experienced a large measles outbreak, the WHO confirmed that measles transmission was re-established. There were more than 1,000 cases last year as well.
The move is also a reflection of the fact vaccination rates are below the 95% threshold required to achieve herd immunity – when enough people in a community are vaccinated against a disease, making it hard for the pathogen to spread.
