Measles threatens to become endemic in the US again due to falling inoculation rates, according to new research that will add to alarm over vaccine scepticism in President Donald Trump’s administration.
The potentially fatal virus could cause millions of cases if inoculation levels fall by 10 per cent, and re-establish itself in less than 25 years at current vaccination rates, according to modelling led by scientists from Stanford University.
US authorities under Robert F Kennedy Jr, health and human services secretary and a long-standing vaccine sceptic, have been criticised for their response to an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas. Health experts fear that the reluctance to unequivocally endorse vaccination could accelerate growing public hesitancy towards jabs for measles and other dangerous illnesses.