❝ More than 34,000 people across Europe caught measles in the first two months of 2019, with the vast majority of cases in Ukraine, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday as it urged authorities to ensure vulnerable people get vaccinated.
❝ The death toll among 34,300 cases reported across 42 countries in the WHO’s European region reached 13, with the virus killing people in Ukraine – which is suffering a measles epidemic – as well as in Romania and Albania. The risk is that outbreaks may continue to spread, the WHO warned.
❝ Measles is a highly contagious disease that can kill and cause blindness, deafness or brain damage. It can be prevented with two doses of an effective vaccine, but – in part due to pockets of unvaccinated people – it is currently spreading in outbreaks in many parts of the world including in the United States, the Philippines and Thailand…
There is no specific antiviral treatment for measles, and vaccination is the only way to prevent it, the WHO said. Most cases are in unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people.
And if the anti-vaxxers get their political way, we will return to the days of my childhood. Every spring my fellow students would gather in the schoolyard first warm day – look around to see who died or was unable to resume school from one or another disease.
And then we waited for polio in the summer.
Eideard 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had “pre-discussions” with local and state officials from five states to decide whether people believed to be infected with measles, who had travel plans, can be put on the “Do Not Board” list, preventing them from flying.
https://www.ibtimes.com/measles-outbreak-cdc-may-impose-temporary-flying-ban-infected-people-2794571 According to the Washington Post, steps were taken to warn eight individuals from New York, California, Illinois, Texas and Washington, against taking a flight during the disease’s 21-day incubation period. CDC spokeswoman Caitlin Shockey told CNN that the eight people, who agreed to cancel their flights after learning the federal government could put them on the dreaded list, were either infected by measles, or were believed to have a high probability of becoming infected, or lacked proper immunization to the highly contagious virus, or were suspected of being in close contact with a measles-infected person.
The list, that prohibits infectious citizens from boarding aircraft when they are sick, had been used as an effective tool by the federal government since 2007, when it was used to stop the spread of tuberculosis, Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, explained.
Measles has killed nearly 5,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2019, authorities said, after the disease spread to all the provinces in the country.
Close to a quarter of a million people have been infected this year alone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says this is the world’s largest and fastest-moving epidemic.
Measles in DR Congo has now killed more than twice the number who have died of Ebola there in the last 15 months.
The Congolese government and the WHO launched an emergency vaccination programme in September that aimed to inoculate more than 800,000 children. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50506743