Warning shot over MMR jabs

Published on Monday 18 September 2006 12:29

DOCTORS are warning parents in Edinburgh that they risk causing measles and mumps outbreaks because they are not having their children immunised.

Take-up of the controversial MMR vaccine in south Edinburgh is the lowest in mainland Scotland with one in five children still not being immunised by the time they are six years old.

Experts believe the parents of these children are still too frightened to have their children inoculated following claims that the vaccine is linked to autism.

They say that these children not only risk contracting measles, mumps and rubella at a later age but could also start an outbreak.

The latest NHS figures show that 21 per cent of six-year-olds in the south of Edinburgh have started school without completing their preschool course of the vaccine. In the rest of the city, one in ten children is not immunised.

Health bosses are now considering a widespread letter campaign warning of the dangers and inviting parents to have their children immunised.

NHS Lothian's director of public health Dr Alison McCallum said: "It may be recalled that the original fears over MMR, which have now been thoroughly discredited, occurred around 2001 and we first saw a dip in immunisation rates then.

"Parents need to know that it is never too late to protect their children against these diseases."

Measles and mumps are killer viruses and the World Health Organisation has said that 95 per cent of the population must be vaccinated to protect those who have not been immunised.

Concerns about the MMR jab were triggered in 1998 following now-discredited claims by Dr Andrew Wakefield, who suggested it may be linked with autism and bowel problems. Since then, around ten per cent of children have regularly not completed their course of MMR vaccines in the Lothians.

Dr Peter Shishodia of Muirhouse Medical Practice said he could understand why parents were worried but said their fears were unfounded.

He said: "It is a perceived fear and I've got some sympathy for the parents. The MMR offers fairly good protection but it's not 100 per cent and you need to have 95 per cent immunised for herd immunity to be achieved."

The MMR is a combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella and, although single vaccines are available from private clinics, they are not available on the NHS.

The MMR is given to children first at the age of 12 to 15 months and again between the ages of four and six. The uptake of the jab among babies has been improving in the last year, with 95 per cent in West Lothian and 94 per cent in Midlothian being immunised by the age of two. Uptake is lower in the Capital with up to one in ten not immunised by age two. Measles is a viral infection and can cause brain damage, deafness and death. Both mumps and rubella pose a serious risk to pregnant women. Mumps is also linked to meningitis and can cause male sterility.