"Money is a major problem. Vaccination campaigns cost around US$1.80 per child in the DRC, says Masresha; international donors foot some of the bill, but the country is expected to pay a share. In 2010, the DRC couldn’t muster the funds and cancelled a scheduled campaign. An outbreak that hit at the end of the year raged for more than 30 months. Further campaigns in 2013–14 and 2016–17 didn’t reach enough children. In June 2019, after cases soared to more than 3,500 a week at the start of the year, the DRC government declared an epidemic, opening the door to further international aid. By the end of the year, 18.5 million children had been vaccinated. The WHO estimates that there have been more than 348,000 cases and 6,500 deaths, but Francisco Luquero, an epidemiologist at Epicentre, the research arm of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, also called Doctors Without Borders) in Paris, thinks the outbreak is much worse. The case count reflects only people who go to health centres, he says; many don’t in the DRC. As for the mortality estimates, “they count deaths that happen right after a measles case. They should look out for the next five years,” he says, because of immune amnesia. “The outbreak will have a profound impact on public health.”"