Shropshire children at risk as measles jab missed
Thousands of children in Shropshire have been left unprotected from measles over the last decade.
The charity Unicef said increasing numbers of youngsters are being left at risk.
It said that vaccination rates are plummeting, with inaccurate and misleading anti-vaccination messages on social media thought to be among the reasons.
In the Telford & Wrekin area, Public Health England figures show that between April 2010 and December 2018, 709 children had not received their first vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella by the age of five.Two jabs are required by the age of five to provide full immunity, and a further 930 children did not receive the second jab.
In the Shropshire area over the same period 1,049 children had not received their first vaccination, and a further 1,158 children did not receive the second jab.
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It means that the overall vaccination rate over the period for Telford & Wrekin was 91.8 per cent, below the 95 per cent the World Health Organisation says is needed to prevent the disease spreading in the community, and leaving a total of 1,639 children without full protection against measles. In Shropshire it was 91.7 per cent.
Unicef’s analysis estimated that 169 million children around the world missed out on the first dose of the measles vaccine between 2010 and 2017 – an average of 21.1 million a year. More than half a million of them were thought to be in the UK.
The most recent figures, for October to December 2018, show that uptake of both doses of the MMR vaccine in England’s five-year-old children is 87 per cent.
There were 966 measles cases in England in 2018, up from 259 in 2017.
Measles is highly contagious. The symptoms are unpleasant, including a rash and fever, and there can be serious complications in some cases.
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The Health Secretary Matt Hancock recently said he would not rule out banning unvaccinated children from schools.
When asked if he would follow measures attempted in France and the US to tackle measles, he said: “I wouldn’t rule out anything but I don’t think we’re there yet.In America they tried to do this and the courts stopped them so it can be complicated, but really it’s people’s responsibility as a parent to do the right thing – the right thing for their own children as well as, of course, the right of the community that everybody lives in.”
Mary Ramsay, Public Health England’s head of immunisations, said: “The UK achieved WHO measles elimination status in 2017, so the overall risk of measles to the UK population is low.
“However due to ongoing measles outbreaks in Europe, we will continue to see cases, particularly in unimmunised individuals.This could lead to some spread in communities with low MMR coverage and in age groups that mix closely.”
“Measles can be extremely serious, so make sure you and your family are protected.”
Rejected jabs a ‘global timebomb’
More than half a million children in the UK missed out on the MMR vaccine between 2010 and 2017, the children’s charity Unicef says.
Globally, 169 million children did not receive the first dose of the measles vaccine over the same seven-year period.
There have been more than 110,000 measles cases worldwide in the first three months of 2019 – a rise of 300 per cent compared to last year, World Health Organisation figures show.
It comes as NHS chief Simon Stevens warned that people rejecting vaccines was a “growing public health time bomb”
Today’s alert for the West Midlands comes as the US is gripped in a measles crisis. President Trump, who had previously linked the MMR jab to autism, has told Americans to “get their shots”.
“The vaccinations are so important,” he told reporters outside the White House.
Nearly 700 cases have been reported across 22 states amid a resurgence of the highly infectious disease, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Vaccination rates have dropped steadily in the US with many parents objecting for philosophical or religious reasons. Others, known as “anti-vaxxers”, believe discredited information that vaccines cause autism in children.
Mr Trump’s latest comments contrast markedly from his previous public statements about vaccinations. During a Republican primary debate in 2015, he suggested vaccines were responsible for an “epidemic” of autism. But he has now appeared to have changed his mind.
