Half a million children haven’t had measles jab
MORE than half a million children in Britain have not been vaccinated against measles, figures have revealed.
Simon Stevens, the head of NHS England, yesterday challenged social media companies to block “grossly irresponsible” anti-vax propaganda after statistics from Unicef were released.
He said sites such as Instagram and Youtube should adopt “zero tolerance” regimes.
The Unicef data showed the UK to be among the worst high-income countries for uptake of the measles jab.
The figures, dealing with children left unvaccinated between 2010 and 2017, follow a steep rise in measles cases in England last year.
The increase is thought to be a direct result of the drop in vaccinations that followed the 1998 publication of fraudulent research by disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield that linked the measles, mumps and rubella jab to autism.
Vaccination coverage among children reaching their second birthday in
England is now 91 per cent, with just 87 per cent receiving the second dose by their fifth birthday.
This falls below the 95 per cent believed to be necessary to achieve “herd immunity”, which effectively prevents the spread of outbreaks.
Mr Stevens described vaccine rejection as a “serious and growing public health time bomb”.
“With measles cases almost quadrupled in England in just one year, it is grossly irresponsible for anybody to spread scare stories about vaccines, and social media firms should have a zero tolerance approach towards this dangerous content,” he said.
Coverage for MMR at two years old decreased in 2017-18 for the fourth year in a row, the lowest it has been since 2011-12, which marked the high point of the recovery from the Wakefield scare.
Anti-vax conspiracy theories have gained traction again in recent years, however, fuelled by social media and endorsement from actors including Jim Carrey and Robert de Niro.
Unicef research places Britain third worst among 10 high-income countries for the number of children left unvaccinated, estimated at 527,000. Only in the US and France is the rate worse.
In 2017, there were 259 measles cases in England, rising to 966 in 2018.
Meanwhile in the first three months of 2019, more than 110,000 cases were reported worldwide, up almost 300 per cent on the year before. An estimated 110,000 people, most of them children, died from measles in 2017 globally, a 22 per cent rise on the previous year.
Prof Arne Akbar, president of the British Society for Immunology, said: “Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that can lead to very serious complications, including death.
“Because the measles virus spreads so easily between individuals, it’s vital that a high percentage of the population is vaccinated to block this spread.”
Prof Akbar said a significant proportion of measles cases last year were in teenagers and young adults who were not vaccinated when younger.
“If you or your child has missed out on the benefits of vaccination, it’s not too late to get immunised,” he said.
“Don’t regret it by waiting to catch one of these diseases.”
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 with very close mixing. Measles can be extremely serious, so make sure you and your family are protected.”