Measles resurgence in London could infect thousands, warns health body
London faces a resurgence of measles that could infect tens of thousands of people and kill dozens unless vaccination rates rise substantially, according to the UK body responsible for infectious disease prevention.
Analysis released by the UK Health Security Agency on Friday showed that England had 128 confirmed cases of measles in the first half of this year, with 66 per cent of those cases in London. There were 54 cases across the country in the whole of 2022.
Mathematical projections suggested that numbers could rise very quickly in the future, leading to a measles outbreak affecting between 40,000 and 160,000 people in the capital, though UKHSA said the chance of a nationwide epidemic was low because vaccination rates were significantly higher outside London.
Beate Kampmann, professor of paediatric infection and immunity at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that “for every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it”. She added that 95 per cent of the population needed to have been inoculated to “avoid deaths, serious cases and a community outbreak . . . but our current coverage is well below this target”.
According to the UKHSA, the vaccination rate — normally achieved through the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab in young children — runs at about 85 per cent for England as a whole, but in parts of London it is below 70 per cent.
The NHS has launched a national campaign to encourage uptake of MMR, with special targeting of communities in the capital identified as having the lowest vaccination rates.
The UKHSA said that, besides young children, “susceptibility to measles is particularly high among 19- to 25-year-olds, affected by unfounded stories in the early 2000s” that MMR caused autism.
It said these “Wakefield cohorts” of unvaccinated young adults — named after Andrew Wakefield, who promoted the now discredited idea that MMR jabs had unacceptable side-effects — would be most vulnerable in a large outbreak.
Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known, with each case infecting roughly 15 more people in an unprotected population. It causes significant complications in an estimated one in 15 cases.
The disease has been on the rise globally since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to a decline in childhood vaccinations. Large outbreaks are happening in several countries in Africa and South Asia. Some 128 cases were reported in Austria in the first half of 2023, more than occurred in the whole EU last year.
David Elliman, consultant in community child health at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said the UKHSA warning, “along with the recent concerns about polio and diphtheria, should act as a wake-up call about the state of childhood immunisation in general”.
Elliman added: “It would be much better that everyone is immunised on time, rather than have repeated catch-up programmes.”
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Clive Cookson
