UK health chief urges measles jabs to avoid spread

Pallade Veneta - UK health chief urges measles jabs to avoid spread

HEALTH 19.01.2024

UK health chief urges measles jabs to avoid spread / Photo: GEORGE FREY - GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

The UK's public health protection agency on Friday sounded a "national call to action" for more measles jabs for children because of falling vaccination rates and fears the virus could spread.

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Jenny Harries, head of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), warned that measles was spreading among unvaccinated communities.

People had "forgotten what measles is like", Harries told BBC radio, adding that it could cause even death in rare cases.

She said the UK had previously achieved "measles elimination status" but now the number of children starting school having had both doses of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) stood at only 85 percent.

In some areas of the central West Midlands region of England the percentage vaccinated had dropped to 81 percent, she said.

Figures released by the UKHSA showed there were 198 laboratory-confirmed cases and 104 "likely" cases between October 23, 2023 and January 15 in the West Midlands.

Of those, 80 percent were found in the city of Birmingham.

Asked which communities were less likely to take up vaccinations, Harries said that "for the West Midlands, for those in Muslim communities, they will be not keen to take up one of the MMR vaccines that we offer which has a pork-based derivative".

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 83 percent of the world's children received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday through routine health services –- the lowest since 2008.

In 2021 there were an estimated 128,000 measles deaths worldwide, mostly among under-vaccinated or unvaccinated children under the age of five.

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