Why is measles making a comeback in the UK?
Al JazeeraAs Northern Ireland reports its first case of the disease in seven years, the rest of the UK has seen a surge over the past year. Outbreaks of measles have sprung up in parts of Britain in recent months amid concerns of what Dr Vanessa Saliba from the UK Health Security Agency, has called a “worryingly low MMR vaccine uptake in some areas across the country”. The MMR vaccine, first introduced in Britain in 1988 and still used today, offers lifelong protection against measles, mumps and rubella and is 99 percent effective. According to the World Health Organization, “between 2000 and 2020, measles vaccination prevented an estimated 31.7 million deaths worldwide.” Why are people choosing not to have the vaccine in the UK? In England, the most populous of the UK’s four constituent nations, uptake of the MMR vaccine in children for 2022-2023 was recorded at about 85 per cent, the lowest level since 2010-2011, sparking fears that this highly contagious but preventable disease could make a comeback in Britain.
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