Tracker to help parents with child immunisation needs

A CHILD immunisation tracker has been launched to help parents keep track of their children’s vaccination history and remind them when a injection is due.

Last week, as part of the World Health Organisation’s European Immunisation Week, the Health Service Executive said that while immunisation uptake here had improved in recent years, Ireland’s rate of inoculation was still below the WHO target of 95%.

It referred to Health Protection Surveillance Centre figures for 2010 which showed that while 94% of children are protected against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio by the time they reach two years of age, uptake rates for MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine had only reached 90%, which was not sufficient to prevent measles outbreaks.