Because of the recent scares in the UK, linking MMR to Autism (a link which has now been discredited), growing numbers of parents have been refusing to immunise their children with the MMR vaccine. The result is that over the last two or three years recorded rates of measles have gone up noticably. Last year we had our first measles death for about fifteen years.
From the BBC News site:
Quote:
Health experts are issuing a warning about measles after an unexpectedly high number of cases this summer.
Parents are being urged to make sure their children have had both doses of the jab against measles, mumps and rubella before the return to school.
The Health Protection Agency has recorded 480 cases of measles this year - and more samples are arriving each day, with about half testing positive.
Doctors and HPA experts said they were concerned about the number of cases.
HPA immunisation expert Dr Mary Ramsay said: "We've been very worried because the cases have stayed up over the summer holidays.
.....................Ollie Mullen is one of this summer's measles statistics. Aged eight months, he was too young for vaccination.
His mother, Anna-Maria, was astonished to find that her youngest son's runny nose, temperature and rash were symptoms of a serious disease.
She said: "I feel quite shocked and disappointed that people still haven't got their children vaccinated against measles - and also that I was walking around with an infectious child.
"It's a really horrible illness. Ollie was very miserable and quite lethargic for a week. I would say definitely do get your children immunised."
The latest figures on measles in Britain show high numbers in the east and south-east of England, Yorkshire and Humberside and London.
Doctors' surgeries at Hackney in the east of the capital are feeling the consequences of the backlash against vaccination.
There have been more than 120 measles cases in the borough in the past three months - most of them in children aged under five who have not been immunised.
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick is a GP in Hackney who is vehement about the need for parents to get behind MMR.
"I am angry that the effect of this campaign against the MMR vaccine has ended up in outbreaks of measles like this," he said.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6970525.stm