Experts want children to get vaccine earlier

MEDICAL experts have recommended children be given the MMR vaccine at an earlier age after a measles outbreak claimed three lives.

The Royal College of Physicans of Ireland yesterday issued revised guidelines recommending children be vaccinated from their first birthday, instead of the current practice of vaccination at 15 months.

The revision was prompted by a measles epidemic in Dublin two year’s ago in which almost 1,600 children were affected, compared to a national figure of just 27 cases in 1999.

Three children died as a result of complications, two of them from pneumonia and another from inflammation of brain tissue.

“The highest rates during the measles outbreak in Dublin were in children too young to be vaccinated. A lot of them got very sick, so we’re trying to protect children of those ages,” Darina O’Flanagan, a member of the RCPI’s national immunisation advisory committee, said.

The MMR vaccine uptake among two-year-olds is still well below target at 72% between last April and June.

While there has been improvement, health authorities are concerned that people are frightened by claims of links between the three-in-one vaccine and autism.

The director of the National Disease Surveillance Centre, Dr O’Flanagan said the meningitis c immunisation programme in October, 2000 highlighted the benefits of vaccines.

In the first nine months of that year, there were 121 notified cases of the potentially fatal disease. The corresponding figure for this year is just 13, almost 90% fewer cases as a result of a major uptake in children up to teenage years.

While there is major diversity between uptake rates in different health board regions, most urban areas show lowest vaccination levels according to figures for the second three months of this year.

Only 63% of children up to one-year-old in the Eastern Regional Health Authority had been vaccinated against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio and Hib - now available as a five-in-one vaccine.

In the North Western Health Board, the take-up rate was 84%.

Minister of State with responsibility for children, Brian Lenihan, urged all parents to have their children immunised to ensure they and the general population have maximum protection against the diseases concerned.