Parents urged to vaccinate children

WITH figures showing an ongoing decline in the up-take rate of some recommended vaccines, public health experts have urged parents not to be complacent about immunising their children.

Data released this week shows parents remain slow to avail of the recommended three doses of the vaccine that protects against meningitis C.

Data for the last quarter of 2010, supplied by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), shows the rate of up-take for meningitis C down to 82% — considerably below the World Health Organization (WHO) target of 95% — and 11 percentage points down on the 93% uptake rate for the same period the previous year.

Dr Suzanne Cotter, a specialist in public health medicine with the HPSC, said because some diseases seemed to have largely disappeared, there was a danger parents may not be as vigilant in getting their children immunised.

“In modern-day society, people have got complacent, they’re not seeing as much of the disease around.

“But one of the most important things you can do to prevent serious disease in most children is to have them immunised.”

She said the “herd effect” — a form of immunity that occurs when those around us are vaccinated — provided some protection to those not immunised, but the more take-up rates drop, the less immunity in the general population and the greater the potential for disease outbreaks.

“Meningitis C has caused a big problem in Ireland over the years but as a result of the vaccine, we haven’t seen as much of it. But if we have less people immunised, the risk is it will increase again,” Dr Cotter said.

The HPSC blamed the fall-off in vaccine take-up on a number of reasons including parental confusion about the number and timing of vaccines following the introduction of a new schedule in 2008; a lower return of parents for vaccines due at the 13 months visit and a lack of capacity, due to other service demands, to follow-up on those who did not present for immunisation.

However, Dr Cotter said the decline was for “reasons we are not 100% sure about” and that there was an ongoing study to try and identify what was behind it.

She said a number of activities were taking place to improve uptake rates including more follow-up of people who defaulted.

Dr Cotter said it was important for parents to realise that even if a child was over age two, it was not too late to get the vaccine, which is administered by GPs free of charge.

HSPC figures also show the rate of uptake for the measles vaccine is at 90%, five percent below target. Dr Cotter said parents should ensure their children receive the MMR for this highly infectious disease, which has infected more than 10,000 people in Europe and claimed four lives in 2011.

The number of measles cases notified to the HPSC for the first 22 weeks of the year stands at 49, down from 357 cases for the same period last year.