A shadow health minister has described the measles outbreak as “deeply troubling” and called for more powers to be given to health visitors to vaccinate children.
Speaking at the Institute for Government Conference in London, Labour’s Karin Smyth said “alarm bells have been sounding” since the UK was stripped of its measles-free status in 2019, adding that the Government “failed to act”.
“The cost of that failure is the deeply troubling measles outbreak we’re seeing today,” she added.
Figures show there have been 216 confirmed measles cases and 103 probable cases in the West Midlands since October 1 last year.
The majority (80%) came from Birmingham, with the remainder in Coventry. Most cases were in children under 10.
Ms Smyth’s comments followed the launch of an NHS campaign urging millions of parents to book their children in for missed measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines.
On Monday, the Government warned that almost 3.5 million under-16s are at risk of catching the diseases as a result of not being vaccinated.
Ms Smyth said “red tape” that stops health visitors administering jabs “has left thousands of children without their MMR vaccination”.
She added: “We would like to have things like health visitors being able to vaccinate children make it much more accessible.”
Health minister Maria Caulfield said there has been a “gradual 10-year decline” in population coverage with the MMR, with factors such as disruption during the pandemic blamed and the impact of discredited claims made in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield.
Ms Smyth called for better online safety, with restrictions put in place on platforms to stop misinformation being put forward, “particularly in areas of public health”.
The NHS vaccine catch-up scheme will target all parents of children aged six to 11, urging them to make an appointment for any missed MMR jabs.
It will also target areas of low uptake, contacting more than one million people aged 11 to 25 in London and the West Midlands.
The first dose of the MMR jab is usually offered to babies aged one, with the second dose given at three years and four months.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here