Fears childhood immunisation rates are being damaged by anti-vaxxers
Fears have been raised that Covid anti-vaxxers could be causing the number of children being jabbed against other diseases to fall.
Walsall’s director of public health Stephen Gunther said the borough was not meeting targets for routine childhood vaccinations and immunisations against measles, mumps, rubella and whooping cough, with levels dropping over a number of years.
In this year’s Walsall Health Protection Strategy document produced by Mr Gunther, it was also revealed half of the town’s GP practices were not achieving the target of a 95 per cent uptake of the MMR vaccine.
In the worst cases, some practices had less than 60 per cent uptake of vaccinations.
The uptake of children who have had two jabs by the age of five is at 86.8 per cent.
Mr Gunther said they wanted to increase the levels of children having two MMR jabs by the age of five and were working with other organisations to help increase the uptake of vaccinations.
Councillor Stephen Craddock, Walsall Council’s portfolio holder for health and wellbeing, said the two issues were of concern.
He said: “The fact we’ve got a lot of anti-vaxxers, is that going to filter down into some of the other vaccinations and immunisations? It’s a little bit frustrating there is so much hesitancy in one way or another.”
At the health and wellbeing board meeting, Mr Gunther said: “Routine immunisations are one of our priority areas.
“One of the things I have said in forums is, ‘yes we are dealing with Covid and yes we are responding appropriately but what I don’t want to be dealing with is a measles outbreak.
“So particularly the second MMR vaccination is important. We are working with Walsall Together making sure we take that supportive approach to our communities where we haven’t got that uptake.
“We have learned a lot over the last year or so in terms of vaccine hesitancy and again that engagement will help us to actually pick up the routine immunisations.”
