Via the East Anglian Daily Times: Measles: Symptoms and health warning in Suffolk and Essex after UK outbreaks. Excerpt:
Parents in Suffolk and north Essex are being warned to make sure their vaccinations are up to date following outbreaks of measles in Europe.
Latest health data reveals cases in the UK have leapt up this year.
But the figures also show hundreds of young children are not being taken to GPs for their measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines.
As schools break up for the holidays, health chiefs are urging people to do all they can to ensure vaccinations are kept up to date in a bid to curb growing numbers of cases.
In the UK, 757 cases of measles have been reported so far this year. That’s almost triple the 274 cases logged in 2017 as a whole.
What’s the situation in our area?
In Suffolk, 90% of children turning five had received the recommended two MMR jabs in the 2016-17 financial year.
That means one in 10 – an estimated 860 five-year-olds in the area – had not been vaccinated.
Approximately 1,850 children aged five in Essex had not been vaccinated against measles in that year – but 90% of youngsters had been protected by jabs.
Both counties fell below the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)’s threshold of 95%.
Areas where fewer than 95% of the population are vaccinated are at a heightened risk of a measles outbreak, experts are warning.
