Hunter New England Health public health physician Dr David Durrheim will be travelling to Washington D.C next week to chair a meeting organised by the World Health Organisation to discuss the feasibility of eradicating measles.

Dr Durrheim will be chairing the Global Technical Consultation to Assess the Feasibility of Measles Eradication which is a gathering of international experts who will be providing advice on achieving the goal of global measles eradication.

“Around the world there have been major achievements in measles control. Between 2000 and 2007 a campaign to increase vaccination resulted in a 74 per cent reduction in measles deaths from 750,000 in 2000 to 190,000 in 2007,” Dr Durrheim said.

“While this is a move in the right direction it is still unacceptable for so many children to be dying due to this vaccine preventable illness.”

In May this year the World Health Assembly endorsed global measles targets for 2015 as milestones towards the global eradication of measles.

“These targets included achieving 90 per cent coverage of first dose measles vaccine in every country, reducing and maintaining the incidence of measles to less than five cases in every million people and reducing measles mortality by 95 per cent in comparison to 2000 estimates,” Dr Durrheim said.

The World Health Organisation meeting will give international experts the opportunity to review all aspects of the feasibility of eradicating measles including biological, technical, vaccine availability, political, economic, programmatic and impact of health systems.

“After reviewing all these aspects the international experts will be able to provide advice to the World Health Organisation on whether measles can be eradicated, what research will be required to achieve this, and provide recommendations on the timing and nature of achieving the global goal,” Dr Durrheim said.

“I am honoured to have been selected to chair this important global consultation which has the potential to have a huge impact on health outcomes around the world, in particular in reducing childhood mortality,” he said.

Contact: Sharna McCarthy

Phone: 4921 4501