MMR jab: Measles and needles in vaccination battle
The number of parents having their children vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella is falling, and doctors fear that could seriously affect young people.
Early this year, the World Health Organisation called the anti-vaccine movement “one of the worst health threats facing humanity”.
Parents refusing to have their children immunised against measles, mumps and rubella threatens to “reverse progress” in tackling preventable diseases, the UN’s health body said.
At the same time, there was a 30 per cent spike in measles cases worldwide, including in several countries where the virus had been virtually eliminated.
Across England, take-up of the vaccine has fallen, with NHS chief executive Simon Stevens also blaming anti-vaccine messages increasing prominence as “part of the fake news movement”.
The latest figures show that between April and September 2018, 86.3 per cent of children turning five had received the recommended two MMR jabs in Wolverhampton.
This figure is 94.3 per cent in Dudley, 91.4 per cent in Walsall and 87.8 per cent in Sandwell.
It all means that about 260 children in Wolverhampton, 116 in Dudley, 306 in Sandwell and 175 in Walsall, are not vaccinated.
