THE MMR ‘MIDDLE CLASS REVOLT’
1 in 3 children in wealthiest areas of the country have still not had the vaccine
‘Anti-vaxx sentiment’ ‘Think they won’t come to harm’
ONE in three schoolchildren in the wealthiest parts of England have not had their MMR jabs, shocking figures reveal.
Uptake of the vaccine is at its lowest level in seven years across the country as a whole.
But the worst affected areas are in the South East, including Surrey and the London boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea. There, up to 36 per cent of children have not received the two MMR jabs recommended by the NHS by their fifth birthday.
Last night, experts warned of a ‘middle class rejection’ of the vaccine in the worst affected areas, with parents wrongly having doubts over the safety of the jabs – or being too busy for GP appointments.
Other doctors however, suggested the trends were more complicated. Yesterday, the Mail launched a major campaign to improve the uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab alongside all childhood immunisations.
This newspaper is urging ministers to launch a national awareness drive to inform parents that vaccines are safe, and most importantly, save lives. Last night, the campaign received a major boost as Health Secretary Matt Hancock hailed the ‘great’ initiative and the head of the NHS, Simon Stevens, praised our coverage.
The Mail was spurred into action by a report two weeks ago which revealed uptake had fallen for all ten childhood jabs, including measles, polio and meningitis.
Health officials are particularly worried about the decline in uptake of the MMR vaccine after measles cases trebled in just one year.
The NHS recommends that children are given two shots of the MMR vaccine, at 12 months and when they are three. Youngsters who miss either jab are much more likely to get measles.
The Mail analysed the latest figures for 2018/19 from NHS Digital to reveal the areas of England with the worst uptake.
Westminster had the lowest uptake rate, with 36 per cent of children not having received the two MMR jabs by their fifth birthday.
In the east London borough of Hackney, 34 per cent had not been given both doses while the figure in Kensington and Chelsea was 33 per cent. In middle class Kingston-Upon-Thames, 25 per cent of children missed both MMR doses while neighbouring Richmond reported a rate of 24 per cent.
The figure for affluent Surrey was 21 per cent. However, uptake was also poor in Newham in east London, Luton in Bedfordshire and Birmingham. Some experts believe a ‘middle class rejection of vaccination’ is to blame for the low rates of uptake in the worst areas, although others believe the reasons are more complicated.
Professor Jonathan Ball, an immunisation expert from the University of Nottingham said: ‘There’s still an underlying “anti-vaxx” sentiment over whether it’s healthy to keep giving your children more and more immunisations, even though the evidence is out there.
‘A lot of it is to do with convenience... In many, many households both parents are working and if the vaccination requires a visit to the GP surgery for a nurse or a doctor to give the immunisation, you do wonder whether it’s a high priority.’
Professor John Ashton, expresident of the Faculty of Public Health, warned of a ‘middle class rejection of vaccination’. ‘The well-nourished, middle class might think they’re not necessarily going to come to harm,’ he said.
‘That wasn’t necessarily the case when it was common to have epidemics of measles every two years in the 1950s. There would be deafness and brain damage and death in middle class children.’
However, Professor Helen Bedford, an expert in children’s health at University College London, said the areas highlighted in the Mail’s analysis have a mixture of social groups. ‘You get very rich people, who might be getting their vaccinations privately, and that information doesn’t get into NHS figures,’ she said. ‘But those areas also have pockets of extreme deprivation.’
Dr David Elliman, a consultant in community child health at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: ‘There are people who reject vaccines in total. Those may be people who have different health belief systems, they don’t go along with any orthodox medicine. Then there are people who are hesitant, people who just want to know more, or who have had an experience that makes them believe there is a problem with a vaccine, for example a friend down the road who had a child who had the MMR and then got autism.’
Dr Doug Brown, of the British Society for Immunology, said: ‘The reasons behind this regional variation are complex.’ He blamed a number of factors, including whether GP immunisation clinics were held at convenient times or if local NHS trusts sent out reminder letters.
The NHS figures, published two weeks ago, show that 14 per cent of children had not received both MMR jabs by their fifth birthday.
It is the lowest national uptake since 2011/12. The Mail is urging the NHS to introduce a vaccination alert system – by text or letter – to remind parents of appointments. And the fall in uptake of the MMR comes at a time when measles is on the rise with 991 cases reported in 2018, treble the number in 2017. Twenty years ago vaccination rates for MMR plummeted when a study by doctor Andrew Wakefield linked the jab to autism.
Like many news organisations, the Daily Mail gave coverage to his findings, which had been published in the highly respected medical journal, the Lancet.
Wakefield’s claims were later found to be ‘ utterly false’ and he was struck off the doctors’ register.