Primary Health Care as a Practical Means for Measles Control

In 1977 the 30th World Health Assembly affirmed that the main social target of governments and the World Health Organization in the coming decades should be "the attainment by all citizens of the world by the year 2000 of a level of health that will permit them to lead a socially and economically productive life." The International Conference on Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata, USSR in 1978 identified primary health care as the fundamental approach for attaining this social target. What relevance do these pronouncements have concerning the worldwide control of measles? Is primary health care a prerequisite to control? Is it sufficient? It is concluded that little chance for global measles control exists unless national policy makers and health workers at all levels adopt the general approach of primary health care but that it is unlikely this approach, by itself, will assure measles control. Special efforts to reduce or stop measles transmission will also be required. In most developing countries at least, the goal of measles control can best be pursued as part of a broader program to reduce morbidity and mortality from several diseases of children preventable by immunization.