A global resurgence of measles showed no sign of slowing down as preliminary data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed the number of cases quadrupled in the first three months of 2019 in comparison to the same period last year.

Initial figures show 112,163 cases of the highly infectious disease were reported across 170 countries by April, compared to 28,124 in the same period in 2018.

The WHO said this indicates a clear trend with many countries experiencing sizeable outbreaks, and every region it monitors seeing an increase in cases of the potentially deadly disease.

There has been a 300 per cent rise in cases reported in Europe – which last year saw the highest number of cases for a decade – and a nearly 700 per cent rise across Africa, the WHO said.

Outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sudan, Thailand and Ukraine, are causing many deaths – mostly among young children, it added.

The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Show all 7 1 /7 The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Charlie Sheen Sheen fought a legal battle against ex-wife Denise Richards to try and block her from vaccinating their children. Richards of course won and Sheen was reportedly so bitter that he paid the paediatrician bill entirely in nickels Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Gwyneth Paltrow Paltrow's "health and wellness" company Goop hosted a notorious anti-vaccine speaker at their 2018 Goop Summit Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Rob Schneider Schneider demanded the freedom to decline vaccination Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Jenny McCarthy McCarthy has claimed that "people are dying from vaccinations", believes that her son caught autism from a vaccine and has pushed her opinions on the topic publicly for many years AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Bill Maher Maher has long spoken against vaccines sating on Larry King live that "a flu shot is the worst thing you can do." His stance appears to stem from a distrust of government AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Alicia Silverstone In Silverstone's book The Kind Mama, she wrote that "there is increasing anecdotal evidence from doctors who have gotten distressed phone calls from parents claiming their child was ‘never the same’ after receiving a vaccine." Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Andrew Wakefield Godfather of the anti-vax movement, disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield famously published a report in the medical journal Lancet claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in 1998. The Lancet retracted the report in 2010 and Wakefield was struck off the medical register PA

The WHO has previously warned a rising tide of vaccine scepticism, increasingly propagated by false claims on social media, has contributed to the resurgence of measles in many areas where it was virtually eradicated.

“Spikes in case numbers have also occurred in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States of America as well as Israel, Thailand, and Tunisia, as the disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people,” the WHO added.

The disease is one of the most contagious in the world, and caused close to 110,000 deaths in 2017.

Even in high-income countries around a quarter of cases end up in hospital because of complications, which can cause life-long disability, brain damage, deafness and blindness.

The failure to adequately fund vaccination programmes and health awareness schemes in developing countries is another major driver of outbreaks.

There have been more than 115,000 cases – and 1,200 deaths – in Madagascar since September, sparking an emergency vaccination programme which aimed to reach 7 million children under the age of nine.

The figures show new measles cases and deaths in the country are starting to decline.

Official measles data is released by the WHO annually in July, but it warned figures are likely to underestimate the true scale of the problem as less than 10 per cent of infections are reported.

Measles is almost entirely preventable with two vaccination doses, but global coverage has stalled.

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Much of the modern anti-vaccination movement can be traced back to a 1998 paper from disgraced researcher Andrew Wakefield who claimed the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination increases the risk of autism.