Disease still kills 400 children a day – WHO

Monjola Sotubo 14:44 - 11 November 2016

A displaced boy, who fled the violence in Mosul, receives a measles vaccination from a UNICEF-supported health worker in Ibrahim Khalil village in Hamdaniyah, Iraq October 24, 2016. Picture taken October 24, 2016.

According to the WHO and the UNICEF, the fight against measles is being hindered by a lack of political will to get every child immunized.

400 children still die from measles every day, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

According to the WHO and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the fight against measles is being hindered by a lack of political will to get every child immunized against the disease.

“Without this commitment, children will continue to die from a disease that is easy and cheap to prevent,” UNICEF's head of immunization, Robin Nandy said according to Reuters.

The organizations however noted that deaths from measles had fallen by 79 percent worldwide since 2000 mainly due to mass vaccination campaigns.

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The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan account for half of the un-vaccinated babies and 75 percent of the measles deaths in the world.