Measles cases continue to increase around the world

There has been a rapid increase in the global measles outbreak, with reported cases jumping 300 percent in the first three months of 2019 compared with the same period last year, according to the World Health Organization.

As reasons for the increase, the organization has cited a deep mistrust of vaccines, gaps in immunization coverage and lack of access to health care facilities or routine checkups.

This month, the WHO sounded the alarm over the diseases’s grip on the Democratic Republic of Congo, where nearly 5,000 people with measles died in the first 10 months of this year.

The highly contagious disease is