Sao Paulo registered in August the first measles death since 1997 in the most populous state in Brazil and the first also so far this year in the country, health authorities confirmed on Wednesday.

The victim, 42, died on August 17 after spending several days in hospital, but the causes of his death were confirmed today by the Regional Health Secretariat of the state of Sao Paulo.

The man did not have a vaccination record and his clinical condition was vulnerable, but his death coincides with the sharp increase in cases registered in Brazil, mainly in the state of Sao Paulo.

According to the latest bulletin of the Ministry of Health, released on Wednesday, Brazil has confirmed 2,321 measles cases in the last 90 days, 99% of which were registered in the state of Sao Paulo.

Last year, in the country there were 12 deaths and 10,274 confirmed cases of this disease, arising from the two outbreaks registered in the states of Amazonas (9,778) and Roraima (335).

The Secretary of Health Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, Wanderson Kleber, explained that the cases identified in recent months in Brazil correspond to "a new chain, which is not related to the outbreak" of the first months of 2019 in the north of country.

Brazil managed to interrupt the circulation of the virus at the beginning of the year, but cases imported from Israel, Malta and Norway started a new chain. Thus, according to the Ministry of Health, only those registered since last June are considered as cases of "active transmission".

Brazil lost its certification this year as a country free of this disease, although, according to the Secretary of Health Surveillance, the authorities are working to recover it.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that a country loses the measles-free certificate when it records endemic cases of the same type of virus for more than twelve months.

As the first case in Brazil was registered on February 19, 2018, the confirmation of an endemic contagion on February 23 in Pará showed that the disease is still active after one year.

Specialists have warned that in recent years there has been an increase in the number of measles cases in several countries around the world, which reached record levels in African and European countries.

"There has been a global resurgence of the disease due to low global coverage. It is not the fault of any specific country, but we have to improve the coverage," Juarez Cunha, president of the Brazilian Immunization Society (SBIm), told Efe.

In order to stop the progression of the disease, the Ministry of Health plans to send 1.6 million extra doses of vaccines of this highly contagious disease to the states that are most vulnerable.