City and county still below 95% target for childhood immunisations

MEDICAL experts remain concerned about vaccination rates falling below targets in Nottinghamshire.

Nottinghamshire County Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board will meet tomorrow to discuss the region’s current health, strategy and funding updates.

The reports follow months of concern about an outbreak of measles spreading to the area from the West Midlands.

Measles can be prevented by giving young children the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab, which is free on the NHS.

The rate of childhood immunisations in the county overall is better than the rest of the East Midlands and England, but has declined since the pandemic.

The prevalence of the one-dose MMR jab for two-year-olds is better in the county at 92 percent compared with the East Midlands (91.2 percent). But in the city the rate is around 84 percent.

Nottinghamshire county’s child MMR rate has actually risen since March, when it was 86 percent.

But NHS leaders want to see the rate rise to 100 percent and say 95 percent is needed to achieve herd immunity and suppress outbreaks.

The papers read: “[Overall] coverage has remained in part within acceptable thresholds to maintain herd immunity but has dipped since the pandemic.”

The latest Government data shows some vaccinations of two-year-olds across England still fall below 90 percent, with the uptake of the overall childhood vaccination programme in consistent decline over the past 10 years.

Vaccination rates also appear to differ between communities, with Mansfield, Worksop and Newark having lower MMR uptakes, the papers say.

There have been efforts to increase immunisation uptake in Nottinghamshire in the past year, such as targeted engagement activities, an MMR vaccination catch-up initiative and a new commissioned vaccination service for school-aged children.