Measles was close to history in the Western Pacific. Last year the World Health Organization certified that measles and rubella had been eliminated as public health threats in all 21 Pacific island countries and areas — a huge achievement across a region of scattered atolls, remote highlands and crowded cities. Yet the disease is creeping back, and WHO's regional director Dr Saia Ma'u Piukala says the window to stop it for good is now.
The numbers behind the comeback tell a familiar story. Pandemic-era disruptions to vaccination programmes, combined with a steady drip of anti-vaccine misinformation, have left gaps in immunity. In 2025 the region counted more than 1.6 million "zero-dose" children — kids who haven't received even a first routine vaccine. With around 20 million babies born across the Western Pacific each year, even small coverage gaps give the virus room to move. And in a region home to 2.2 billion people, an outbreak in one country quickly becomes a risk for all of its neighbours.
Nine countries and territories still haven't eliminated measles: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Vietnam. Health officials from all nine recently met with WHO experts and agreed on a target of regional elimination by 2030 under WHO's Immunization Agenda 2030. The consensus: no country can do this alone, and emergency outbreak responses aren't enough — routine immunisation and disease surveillance have to reach every community, year after year.
The stakes are bigger than one disease. Vaccination is the single most impactful health intervention of the past half-century, credited with preventing around 94 million measles deaths globally since 1974 — about 12 million of them in the Western Pacific. WHO estimates every US dollar invested in immunisation returns up to $54 in social and economic benefits. The region has form here, too: it has held polio-free status for more than 25 years through exactly the kind of sustained political and financial commitment that measles now needs.
Why should holidaymakers care? Because measles is one of the most contagious viruses known, and travellers are both carriers and casualties. Outbreaks in popular destinations across Southeast Asia and the Pacific can spread quickly through airports, resorts and cruise ships. If you're planning a trip anywhere in the region, check that you've had two doses of a measles-containing vaccine — especially before visiting island nations with smaller health systems, where a single imported case can overwhelm local response capacity. Kids too young to be vaccinated, and anyone with a weakened immune system, face the highest risk.
The regional message is blunt: measles moves fast, and health systems have to move faster. For anyone travelling in the Western Pacific over the next few years, keeping your own vaccinations up to date isn't just personal protection — it's part of the effort to finally close the book on a disease we've known how to prevent for decades.
Pacific Island Times
