Wokingham Borough Council MMR vacine advice for parents

Public health professionals at Wokingham Borough Council are advising parents in the Wokingham Borough to check if their children’s MMR vaccinations for measles are up to date.

Their advice follows an outbreak of measles cases in other parts of the country, but local health specialists are keen to stress that there are no reported cases of the disease here in the borough at this time.

As measles is highly infectious, the World Health Organisation recommends that more than 95 per cent of children should be vaccinated with doses of MMR.

Coverage of MMR vaccine by the age of two in England currently stands at 92 per cent; with 94 per cent receiving the first dose, and 88 per cent having the second dose by the age of five.

Coverage in the Wokingham Borough is 95 per cent receiving the first and some 93 per cent having the second by age five.

Experts believe the current rise in measles cases can be attributed to the number of mainly ten to16-year-olds who aren’t protected because they missed out on the vaccination in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when concern around a now-disproved link between autism and the MMR vaccine was widespread.