[UPDATE] Measles Vaccination: UK Surge Prompts Official To Launch Campaign To Protect Millions

The latest surge of measles in the United Kingdom has prompted officials to launch a vaccination campaign to protect millions of people against the viral disease.

The National Health Service (NHS) is contacting millions of parents in England and urging them to make an appointment to have their kids vaccinated against measles. The campaign comes amid the rising number of cases across the region.

Measles Vaccination Campaign

NHS England said that there are more than 3.4 million children aged under 16 in the UK who are unprotected and at risk of becoming infected by the viral disease. In particular, areas with low uptake of the MMR vaccine, including the West Midlands and London, are the first targets of the vaccination campaign.

A similar campaign conducted last winter pushed up vaccinations by 10%. Last week, UK health officials said an outbreak of highly contagious measles in the West Midlands could spread rapidly to other towns and cities with low vaccination rates, as per BBC.

British physician Dame Jenny Harries has also called for a "call to action right across the country" after hospitals in Birmingham reported a sharp rise in child cases. The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is given in two doses.

The first shot is given at around the age of one and the second shot is given when a child is roughly three years and four months old. The vaccine is very effective at protecting against measles but only 85% of children who start primary school in the UK have had both shots, which is well below the target 95% needed to curb the spread of the disease.

In some cities in the UK, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Nottingham, only 75% of five-year-old children are fully vaccinated. The latest vaccination campaign will contact more than 4 million parents, carers, and young adults by text, email, or letter. It would tell them they or their children missed one or both doses.

Helping Millions of Unprotected Individuals

There were roughly 250 confirmed measles cases in several parts of England last year. The majority of whom were children under 10 years old. The situation comes as measles was declared eliminated in the UK in 2017, which meant that the disease was no longer native to the country, according to ABC News.

Despite this, transmissions of the disease began again when epidemics broke out in the rest of Europe. In November last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that measles deaths worldwide spiked by more than 40%.

NHS England's director of vaccinations and screening, Steve Russell, said that unvaccinated against measles can get catch-up jabs at MMR pop-ups in schools and other convenient places.

Measles is a highly infectious viral disease that can cause serious illness and sometimes even death among children and adults. If the disease is caught during pregnancy, it can also lead to stillbirth, miscarriage, and low birth weight, said The Guardian.