MMR catch-up campaign targets a million children

The MMR vaccine should be given to all unvaccinated schoolchildren aged from 10 to 16 as part of a national catch-up campaign, the government has announced. This MMR vaccination catch-up campaign aims to prevent further measles outbreaks, following recent outbreaks in Wales. Speaking at the launch of the national MMR catch-up programme, Professor David Salisbury, director of immunisation at the Department of Health, said that the outbreaks in Wales had been "a wake-up call for parents", and warned that "what is happening in Swansea could happen anywhere in England". Professor Salisbury urged parents to get their children vaccinated with MMR if they were unsure whether they had previously had the jab.   Why is a catch-up programme required? A catch-up programme is required to protect a generation of children, born between 1997 and 2003, who are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated against measles. Low levels of vaccination in this generation were caused by an unsubstantiated scare about the MMR vaccine. The scare was based on an entirely discredited piece of research that claimed that MMR could trigger autism. Targeting this group of children, estimated to be around one million, will help reduce the potential population in which further measles outbreaks could occur.   Why is measles a threat now? Due to the success of earlier vaccination programmes measles was extremely rare during the 1990s. This began to change after researcher Andrew Wake...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: QA articles Pregnancy/child Medical practice Medication Source Type: news