What we must do NOW to save children’s lives
TECHNOLOGY and medical science are achieving incredible things. We can sequence genomes to find out exactly the type of treatment a person needs, or trace an outbreak of infection quickly to its origin. Babies can undergo surgery while still in the womb.
Yet vaccination, first conceived of in 1796, has saved more lives in the last 50 years than any other medical procedure or product. The World Health Organisation estimates that it prevented 10million deaths between 2010 and 2015 alone.
Uptake of these life-saving treatments is dropping, however, putting our children and wider communities at serious risk. Vaccines are the cornerstone of any safe, well-functioning health system. Through the NHS, Britain has one of the best vaccination programmes in the world – but it has become clear that it is not working for everyone.
Since the measles vaccine was introduced in Britain in 1968, millions of cases of the illness have been prevented and thousands of lives have been saved. In the past 30 years alone, 20million cases and 4,500 deaths have been avoided, according to the World Health Organisation.
The numbers bear this out. The year before the vaccine was introduced, there were almost 500,000 measles cases in Britain and 99 people died.
By 2016, the WHO declared Britain ‘measles-free’. Yet, alarmingly, we have lost that treasured status as cases have spiked again in this country, with vaccine coverage steadily going down. The reasons for parents not vaccinating their children are complex.
While unscientific and dangerous anti-vaccination propaganda on social media is an important factor, our evidence shows there are other issues at play, too. Data suggests that 95 per cent of parents trust vaccines, which makes parental confidence in the national immunisation programme at an all-time high. Parents also trust the information they get from their GPs and from nurses above any other source of information.
I believe there are three things we need to do urgently to address falling vaccination rates.
Firstly, appointments must be offered to families at flexible and convenient times. It should be easier for parents to get their children vaccinated. As well as seeing their family GP, parents of unvaccinated children should be able to source vaccinations in pharmacies, nurseries, children’s centres and other places that families visit.
Second, GPs and nurses need more help to carry out painstaking searches to identify parents who are slipping through the net, inviting them in and reminding them they can still get their children vaccinated. This includes reminders by phone and text.
Thirdly, we need to go back to the future and recreate the role of immunisation co- ordinators – local people who know their communities and who can support parents, GPs and nurses to ensure children receive vaccinations.
Children who aren’t protected are at risk of both catching and spreading illness – and it is no exaggeration to say that, in some cases, their lives are at stake. This is why we are working with the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care on a new National Vaccination Strategy to be published this autumn.
HAVING
said this, we are offering vaccines to more people than ever before. This year every primary school-aged child will be offered the nasal flu vaccine. The HPV vaccine is now offered to boys aged 12 and 13, while one of our newest vaccines, to protect children from meningitis B, has seen excellent uptake. Despite the challenges, Britain still has one of the best vaccination programmes in the world. Children are protected at no upfront cost from 13 potentially serious – even deadly – diseases. As vaccination rates fall, risking alarming consequences for the nation’s health, the Daily Mail’s campaign to get every child vaccinated could not be better-timed or more important – and will save lives.