MEASLES EPIDEMICS IN TURKEY AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Results
Measles morbidity and mortality rates of Turkey during 1970-2001 were shown in Table 1. In Turkey, the morbidity rate was 44.97 per 100000 population and the mortality rate was 0.13 per million population in 2001. 30509 measles cases were reported in 2001, and 66.1% (n=20154) of them were seen between March and June (Figure 1).

The children were mostly in the 5-9 years age group (37.1%, n=11329) (Figure 2). The descriptive informations of measles outbreaks seen in developing countries between 1993 and 2002 were given in Table 2.

Figure 1. Cases of measles' distrubition according to months in Turkey - 2001 (Turkish Ministry of Health-www.saglik.gov.tr).

Table 1. Morbidity and Mortality Rate of measles in Turkey*, 1970-2001.