Catherine Conlon: A measles outbreak is a matter of when, not if, your children are vaccinated

Now is the time to ensure that MMR vaccines are up-to-date and children are protected before an entirely preventable measles outbreak arrives on our shores and wreaks havoc, writes Catherine Conlon

The WHO advise that this resurgence of measles is due largely to a significant fall in vaccine uptake from 2020 to 2022.

When Mark Twain was 12, a measles epidemic swept through his town and, for a time, a child died almost every day.

Feeling like a prisoner in his own house, he decided to visit his friend who was sick with measles. Having decided that life on these miserable terms was not worth living, he escaped to his friend's house where he climbed into bed with him, succeeding in his aim of becoming infected and coming near to dying. His mother, tired of trying to keep him out of mischief, took him out of school and apprenticed him to a printer. And so began the first link in the chain that led him into the literary profession.