In a bid to reduce the risk of a measles epidemic, UK Health Trusts have been asked to offer the MMR...
In a bid to reduce the risk of a measles epidemic, UK Health Trusts have been asked to offer the MMR vaccine to children who remain unvaccinated.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government's chief medical officer, has written to every Primary Care Trust in the UK to say that parents should ensure their children are immunised.
In the letter, Donaldson wrote: "The previous success of the MMR vaccination programme reduced the number of measles cases to very low levels for a number of years. However, the number of measles cases in England are now rising and outbreaks are occurring."
He added: "Following a decade of relatively low vaccination uptake, there is now a large number of children who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated with MMR. The potential exposure of a large number of unprotected children to the measles virus means that there is a real risk of a large measles epidemic."
