The world’s population is facing some of the most terrible diseases known to man. In older times, most problems stemmed from the primitive knowledge of the human body and medicine, and many deaths were caused by such routine afflictions like appendicitis or even the common cold. Epidemics like the Black Plague were clearly no match for human kind, and its devastating effects were not in the least bit surprising. In more recent years, as medicine has significantly evolved, the diseases have become more resistant and many have no cure. Such examples are cancer and AIDS – there is treatment for both, yet the first has unknown causes and the latter has no cure.

There is good news, however, in the medical world. According to a recent report, it seems that worldwide deaths caused by measles have registered a drop of a whopping 74% between 2000 and 2007. The fact that measles deaths are in a declining trend is also proof that the international campaign aimed at increasing the number of vaccination against measles has so far been a successful one.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued a report in which they state that the number of deaths caused by measles have dropped from a staggering 750,000 to 197,000. In countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan, the drop has been even more significant, of about 90%. The drop was from 96,000 deaths caused by measles to 10,000 deaths. Although the goal of the United Nations was to achieve the 90% drop in these countries by 2010, it was achieved three years earlier, in 2007.