Three more children and an adult suspected to have measles

The HSE has urged parents of young children who may have missed out on vaccination during the pandemic to bring them for the MMR jab. File photo

Three more children are suspected to have measles, new data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre shows.

Two cases are among children aged less than four years of age and one is in a child aged between five and nine, data for last week shows.  An additional case in an adult aged between 45 and 49 was also notified to health authorities last week.

Among the four new cases, one is in the east of the country, one in the Midlands and two are in the southeast region.

Last week, the death of a man in Mullingar led to heightened concerns of a potential outbreak of this highly contagious disease.

Also on Thursday, the UK Health Security Agency warned it is now seeing clusters of cases outside the West Midlands area of England where the initial outbreak occurred. Some 56 cases were notified last week, it said. 

This brings the total since the middle of January to 166 cases in England alone. Just over half are centred around Birmingham, but 12% are linked to London, 10% to the northwest, 10% in Yorkshire & the Humber with 9% in the East Midlands.

Overall 66% of the cases are among children aged under 10.

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Concerns remain extremely high also across Europe. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control was notified of 954 new cases across six countries since the January update. 

This compares with the 942 European cases reported to the World Health Organisation during all of 2022. Romania has now reported six deaths, including four among children aged less than one year, the ECDC said. 

Ireland is the only other European country to have reported a death at this point, it said. 

Vaccine

The HSE has urged parents of young children who may have missed out on vaccination during the pandemic to bring them for the MMR jab.

Young people have also been shown to have low vaccination rates which doctors suggested is linked to a vaccine scare in the late 1990s. 

Dr Peter Barrett, consultant in public health medicine with the HSE South West covering Cork and Kerry, previously warned: “We are at high risk of an outbreak.

“There are a lot of children who missed out on their routine MMR, particularly over the last few years, so we are below that 95% threshold that we need to prevent outbreaks.” 

Pharmacists are calling on Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to urgently allow them to deliver the MMR vaccine to allow for a speedy catch-up programme for those who need it.

The wait time to get the vaccine as part of a catch-up programme varies from GP to GP with some having a wait time of weeks.

Pharmacist Sheena Mitchell said that many GPs are already under too much strain without having to offer this additional service.

Doctors are contractually obliged to undertake routine childhood vaccinations but they are permitted to opt out of catch-up programmes.

"As two-thirds of GPs in the west of Ireland for example are not taking on new patients there is nowhere for people to go if their GP is not providing the service. If they are patients still may face long waiting times," said Ms Mitchell.

She said that demand for the MMR vaccine is higher than ever and that we have a unique opportunity to get those adults who did not receive one or both doses of the vaccine when they were children.

Following the pandemic, people are more motivated to get vaccinated and the rollout of the covid vaccine showed how effective community pharmacists were in helping to vaccinate people as quickly as possible, said Ms Mitchell.

"85% of the population live within 5km of a community pharmacy. Out of the 200 vaccinating pharmacists I surveyed - 100% say they could take part of the vaccination catch-up as flu season is winding down and so we have the resources to implement this immediately," she concluded.

Anyone who is unsure of their or their child's vaccination status should contact their GP or local health office.