Ángel Hernández Merino
Pediatrician and collaborator of the Advisory Committee on Vaccines, the Spanish Association of Pediatrics and the Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics
The reduction in the number of measles cases in the WHO European Region from 127,412 in 2024 to just 33,998 in 2025 (a 73.3% reduction) is a very encouraging figure that can only inspire hope, as it means that, in addition to factors stemming from the biological and epidemiological dynamics of the virus itself, the measures taken after the 2024 data point have contributed substantially to the reduction in cases. It should be noted, however, that the WHO European Region comprises 53 countries with very heterogeneous characteristics across Europe and Central Asia, and that, as the WHO itself states, not all countries have experienced this reduction in cases.
The ECDC, based on data from the EU/EEA region, has also observed an overall reduction in cases from 2024 to 2025 (more than 35,000 cases in 2024 and 7,655 in 2025).
It is striking, however, that this overall trend recorded in the WHO European Region and the EU/EEA region is so different from what has been observed in Spain. In our country, confirmed cases in 2025 have almost doubled those of 2024, rising from 227 in 2024 to 397 in 2025, representing an increase of 74.8%.
The data for the EU/EEA region is probably more relevant than that for the WHO European Region because there is greater uniformity among the countries involved, including Spain.
It is therefore necessary to emphasize that the risk of exposure to the virus remains significant in our society and that a transparent study and debate must be conducted on the conditions that have led to the increase in cases in Spain and the measures that need to be adopted. These include: preventing exposure to the virus for children under one year old, not delaying the first dose after 12 months of age, bringing forward the second dose (as Andalusia has already officially done), actively searching for susceptible individuals among adults born after 1978 and among the immigrant population, with prompt vaccination in necessary cases, strengthening the capacity to detect suspected cases in healthcare services, etc. All of this must be done without delay, involving health authorities, regional health services, the media, and the public.