Philanthropies rush to save measles surveillance network pushed to brink of collapse by U.S. cuts

The Trump administration’s gutting of global aid is threatening to collapse a critical network of laboratories responsible for measles and rubella surveillance around the world. Now, philanthropic leaders are rushing to try to save it.

The Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network, or GMRLN — known colloquially as “Gremlin” — costs a relatively nominal sum in the grand scheme of global health efforts, roughly $9 million a year. But the network tests for measles, generates genetic sequences of circulating strains, and effectively tells the world what’s happening with this resurgent virus. It is the way the world knows when Madagascar, say, is in the grips of a large measles outbreak, or that an outbreak touched off in Israel in 2018 had its origins in Ukraine. 

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