Measles cases more than double in Australia from 2024-25, part of global spike

An expert has issued a warning for Aussies travelling during the holiday period after revealing most local cases of a highly contagious disease were linked to those acquired overseas.

In 2025, 162 cases of measles have been recorded so far – compared with 57 in 2024 – by the National Communicable Disease Surveillance System.

Measles is an extremely infectious disease and if untreated can be fatal, especially for young children.

However, Australia’s numbers were important to analyse in the context of global figures, professor of infectious diseases Allen Cheng told NewsWire.

Countries like Canada were reporting “astronomical numbers” of cases, in the thousands, he said.

Professor Cheng added that domestic measles numbers often went “up and down”, citing the national pre-Covid figures in 2019 when national cases soared to 289.

Overseas travel made up just under half the cases in Australia, he said, with the most recent at-risk countries including Indonesia, Vietnam and Pakistan, though outbreaks weren’t bound to any specific region.

According to the World Health Organisation, the risk of infection is particularly high in countries with low per capita incomes or weak health infrastructures that cannot immunise all children.

“In general, this year’s figures represent what is happening all around the world with measles,” Professor Cheng said.

“Just under half the cases that we’ve had in Australia have been associated with travel.

“The other half of the cases are ones that have been acquired locally.

“And a lot of those are actually secondary cases, so someone has come back from overseas and transmitted it to someone locally, so it still does reflect that most of the cases are originating overseas.”

The rise in anti-vaccination sentiment and misinformation, while posing a real risk, wasn’t necessarily the sole factor in the spread of measles in Australia, Professor Cheng said.

Barriers like education, access to healthcare, and cost-of-living pressures also played a role, Professor Cheng said, adding it was not a “black and white issue”.

However, he had a stark warning for those unsure of the science.

“I think for people that are going overseas, specifically, it’s one thing to get measles in Australia, when, at this time, there are 162 cases,” he said.

“But if you go overseas, you have much, much higher risk of catching the disease than where you live in Australia, and measles, particularly for children, can be a fatal disease.

“So while you’ve got to know that nothing’s perfectly safe, you must be aware of the risk of actually getting the disease against the risk of the vaccine.”

Children are prone to the worst of the disease’s complications, including encephalitis, a “catastrophic” inflammation of the brain, Professor Cheng said.

“The other thing is that measles can actually suppress the immune system for several months, or a year later, so, particularly in developing countries, one of the issues is that they might survive the measles, but then they get pneumonia after that.”

Asked whether the holiday period could be more dangerous time for people to acquire the disease, given higher rates of international travel, Professor Cheng said “probably true”.

“The advice to people is that whenever they travel to these countries with a lot of measles cases, they’re at risk,” he said.

“And obviously, it depends on a lot of things, how long they’ve been going there, who they’re going to see when they’re out there.”

Given the disease has different consequences for adults and children, Professor Cheng said the general health advice was split accordingly.

“The advice for adults is that if you’re going to go overseas, make sure you’re up to date with vaccines and not just measles but everything else as well.

“See your doctor before you go and have a bit of time before you go, not the day before you leave for overseas.”

For children, the first scheduled dose for the measles vaccine is at 12 months, followed by another at 18 months.

“However, if a child has to travel to a country at risk, and they’re between six and 12 months, they can actually get an extra dose then,” Professor Cheng said.