MEXICO CITY: The Pan American Health Organization, PAHO, on Wednesday issued a new epidemiological alert following a surge of measles cases across the Americas, with Mexico reporting the highest numbers. It also called for urgent vaccination campaigns, highlighting that 78 percent of recent cases involved unvaccinated people.
The alert follows Canada’s loss of measles-free status in November — a setback the United States and Mexico could soon mirror. While both governments have requested a two-month extension to contain their respective outbreaks, the situation is complicated by the Trump administration’s January withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the parent agency of PAHO.
Current data is discouraging; the upward trend persists with only months remaining before the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off across the three North American host nations.
In the first three weeks of 2026, PAHO confirmed 1,031 new measles cases across seven countries — a staggering 43-fold increase compared to the same period last year.
While no deaths have been reported thus far, the concentration remains high: Mexico leads with 740 cases, followed by the United States with 171 and Canada with 67.
The state of Jalisco, in western Mexico, has recorded the country’s highest incidence rate this year, following last year’s major outbreaks in Chihuahua and neighboring Texas.
In the United States, public health attention has shifted toward South Carolina, where cases are rising. In response, the Mexican government has spent weeks urging the public to receive the two-dose vaccine.
Authorities have even established mobile vaccination clinics in high-traffic hubs like airports and bus terminals, while in the capital, Mayor Clara Brugada launched 2,000 new vaccination modules this week.
“Everyone under 49 years of age, please get vaccinated,” Brugada urged on Tuesday, emphasizing that the vaccine is now accessible throughout the city. To maximize reach, the new modules are being stationed outside health centers and within major subway stations, bringing the campaign directly to the city’s busiest transit corridors.
PAHO’s alert follows a year of sustained growth in measles cases — the highest in five years — driven by a global resurgence and what the agency describes as “persistent immunization gaps.”
While adolescents and young adults account for the largest volume of cases, the highest incidence rates are striking children under the age of one. The disparity underscores a critical need to reinforce second-dose coverage.
Regional data is grim: only 33 percent of countries have reached the 95 percent threshold for the first vaccine dose, and a mere 20 percent have achieved it for the second.
Regional health organization issues alert as measles cases surge across the Americas
https://arab.news/zwbfm
Regional health organization issues alert as measles cases surge across the Americas
- In the first three weeks of 2026, PAHO confirmed 1,031 new measles cases across seven countries — a staggering 43-fold increase compared to the same period last year
Poland slow to counter Russia’s ‘existential threat’: general
- The general highlighted a low “pace of technical modernization,” compared to increases in the army’s size
- Kukula said the Polish army should reach 500,000 soldiers by 2039
WARSAW: Russia poses an “existential threat” to Poland and its military is lagging, the country’s armed forces chief warned senior officials on Wednesday.
Poland, the largest country on NATO’s eastern flank and a neighbor of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, is the western alliance’s largest spender in relative terms.
This year, the country is allocating 4.8 percent of its GDP to defense, just shy of the alliance’s five percent target to be met by 2035.
However, that record defense spending was not enough to “make up for nearly three decades of chronic underfunding of the armed forces,” General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the general staff, argued at the meeting, which included top officers, the defense minister and Poland’s president.
The general highlighted a low “pace of technical modernization,” compared to increases in the army’s size.
Kukula said the Polish army should reach 500,000 soldiers by 2039, compared with around 210,000 at present.
As a result of a lack of updates, some new Polish units “are not achieving combat readiness,” due to insufficient equipment, rather than a personnel shortage, the general argued.
Meanwhile, he added, “the Russian Federation remains an existential threat to Poland.”
Russia “is constantly reorganizing its forces, drawing on the lessons from its aggression in Ukraine, and building up the capacity for a conventional conflict with NATO countries,” he stressed.
Poland is to receive 43.7 billion euros ($51,5 billion) in loans under the European Union’s Security Action For Europe (SAFE) scheme, designed to strengthen Europe’s defensive capabilities.
Warsaw plans to use these funds to boost domestic arms production.
The Polish government claims that Poland will be able to access SAFE finance even if President Karol Nawrocki — backed by Poland’s conservative-nationalist opposition — vetos a law setting out domestic arrangements for its implementation.
Law and Justice (PiS) — the main opposition party — argues that SAFE could become a new tool for Brussels to place undue pressure on Poland, thanks to a planned mechanism for monitoring the funds, which they claim risks undermining Polish sovereignty.
