[Epidemiologic overview of measles in Mexico: current situation and perspectives]

It has been recognized that due to immunization campaigns and specific treatment of medical complications, has resulted in a reduced measles mortality in México as in others countries. However, during the last few years the number of measles cases in México has shown an increasing trend over previous years due to two larges epidemics, in 1985 and 1989. As a vaccine preventable disease, the number of measles cases has shown an important decline in mortality as compared with mortality in the general population. From the total deaths in children under five years the measles deaths have been reduced from a level of 2.8% in 1969 to a level of 1.6% in 1985. The more recent mortality data available shows that 597 deaths caused by measles were registered in 1986, for a mortality rate of 0.75 per 100,000 inhabitants. At higher rate was observed in the age groups less than 1 year with a mortality rate of 5.9 per 100,000 inhabitants compared with 4.2 in the group from 1 to 4 years. The morbidity epidemiologic surveillance system among governmental health services reported a total of 20,076 cases in 1989, with an incidence rate of 23.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a estimated mortality rate of 6.6%. This recent emergence of the measles activity in México is part of a pandemic that is affecting several countries around the world. The impact of these cases on an increased demand of medical care as well as its clinical complications, outcome and mortality, makes measles a high priority problem in México.