Plea to parents as take-up of MMR vaccine falls to a decade low

MMR vaccination uptake is at a decade low, official figures show, as parents did not want to burden the NHS with jab appointments during the pandemic.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is urging parents to ensure their children have had their measles, mumps and rubella vaccines as well as other routine jabs before starting school.

Vaccination rates are at the lowest level in a decade with just 85.5 per cent of five-year-olds in England with two doses, according to the most recent official figures covering July to September 2021.

The last time uptake was below this level was July to September 2011 when 85.4 per cent of five-year-olds had two doses.

The World Health Organisation says 95 per cent of children need to be vaccinated to keep measles at bay. Just 88.6 per cent of children have had their first MMR dose by the age of two, according to the most recent figures.

This means more than one in 10 children aged five are not up to date with their two doses of the jab, UKHSA said.

Coverage for the two doses of MMR vaccine in five-year-olds in the East

Midlands is 86.3 per cent, while coverage of the first dose of the MMR vaccine in two-year-olds in the region is 89.9 per cent.

All children are invited for their first MMR vaccine on the NHS aged one, with the second dose given when they are three years and four months.

Measles is a highly infectious disease that can lead to serious complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain).

One in 10 parents said they were not aware the NHS was still offering the appointments in the pandemic, and the same proportion did not take their child to get the jab because they didn’t want to burden the health service, according to a UKHSA survey.

Of the 2,000 parents surveyed, more than three in five were unaware measles can be fatal.

Since the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1968, it is estimated 20 million measles cases and 4,500 deaths have been prevented in the UK.

Dr Stephen Baker, professor of microbiology at the University of Cambridge, warned that if parents stop immunising their children “we will go back to the Victorian era”.