Correspondent: Aisha Gomez, the Commonwealth Fund
For the first time ever, New Zealand has successfully eliminated endemic measles and rubella, two deadly childhood diseases. This means that there have been no cases of these diseases that have originated in New Zealand in the past three years, although infected people can still bring in the disease from overseas. The World Health Organization, which is responsible for verifying countries for successfully eliminating diseases, made the official announcement at its Regional Committee for the Western Pacific’s annual meeting.
