Every child born year after MMR scare urged to get booster jab

Fears rise as areas with low vaccination rates look increasingly vulnerable to ongoing measles outbreak

PEOPLE born the year after a now-discredited study prompted a vaccine scare have been urged to get missed jabs amid an ongoing measles outbreak.

More than one million people aged 11 to 25 across the measles-hit west Midlands and London are being invited to get missed mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) jabs. It is the first ever NHS vaccination catch-up campaign targeting adults as well as children.

Uptake among children born in 1998 onwards waned following the publication that year of research claiming links between the vaccine and autism by discredited doctor Andrew Wakefield. The paper was later found to have used falsified data and Wakefield was struck off.

First-dose vaccination rates fell from 91.5 per cent in 1997 to a record low of 79.9 per cent in 2004. This was followed by another record-low second-dose uptake of 72.8 per cent in 2007.

Many of these children are now young adults and have been urged by health officials to get both jabs now if they haven’t had them amid the worst outbreak of the disease since the mid1990s. Both doses are required for lifelong protection against measles.

There have been at least 216 cases in the west Midlands and a further 103 “probable” cases since Oct 1, with four in five occurring in Birmingham where just 75 per cent are fully vaccinated.

More than 50 children are known to have been hospitalised since December in Birmingham, which is more admissions than across the entire NHS in any year since before the pandemic.

Swathes of London also have low levels of protection, with Hackney having the lowest rates of any local authority in the country at just 56 per cent. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) last week warned there was a “very real risk” the virus spreads to other innercity areas with low immunisation levels.

People will be able to get their catch-up jabs at school pop-up clinics or GP practices, the NHS said. The health service is also inviting all children aged six to 11 years old in England to get their MMR vaccinations if they have missed either one or both doses.

Parents of these children will be asked to book in with their GP practice for the jab. Children typically receive their first dose at 12 months and the second at three years and four months before starting school.

Steve Russell, NHS director of vaccinations, said the health service was “acting quickly to tackle the spread of measles”.

The NHS said the disease can be “serious at any age” and warned women that if it is caught during pregnancy “it can be very serious, causing stillbirth, miscarriage and low birth weight” as leaders urged “young adults to catch up on any missed doses before thinking about starting a family”.

Measles is a potentially life-threatening infectious disease which can lead to lung infections, brain inflammation and damage to and suppression of the immune system, according to the NHS.