18
The Observer
25.08.19 News‘Get trained
volunteers to
help GPs quell
vaccine fears’
Trained volunteers should be used to
give vaccine advice to parents at doc-
tors’ surgeries, one of Britain’s lead-
ing immunisation experts has said.
Professor Heidi Larson, direc-
tor of the London School of Hygiene
& Tropical Medicine’s Vaccine
Confi dence Project , made the pro-
posal after the World Health
Organization withdrew the UK’s sta-
tus as a measles-free nation last week ,
when it was revealed that there had
been more than 200 cases in England
in the fi rst quarter of the year.
“The news that Britain is no
longer measles-free should be seen
as a wake-up call,” said Larson. “It
is telling us we need to take urgent
action to restore our immunisation
programmes to their previous good
health and one way to do that would
be to provide groups of advisers to
provide information about vaccines.”
Larson stressed that these encoun-
ters should be face to face and should
not be carried out online. “We need
people who are trained at a basic level.
Patients would have trust in them. We
are losing that in the stress of the cur-
rent system.”
The state of current immunisa-
tion programmes was revealed last
week by Public Health England (PHE),
which announced that about 30,
children will start primary school next
month with no protection against
measles, mumps and rubella, while
90,000 have had only the fi rst of the
two vaccines necessary for protection.
As a result, prime minister Boris
Johnson announced a series of urgent
measures aimed at restoring the UK’s
measles-free status. They include:
Asking GPs to promote catch-up
vaccinations for children who have
missed both anti-measles shots.
Urging social media com-
panies to suppress misleading
anti-vaccine messages.
Inviting organisations to a sum-
mit to discuss how to better promote
accurate vaccination information.
Using the NHS website to address
claims about vaccine safety.
However, Larson stressed that she
thought further measures would be
necessary. “If we are seeing rising
cases for measles that means under-
vaccination is occurring and not just
for it but for other diseases,” she said.
“Mumps and rubella will obviously
rise because vaccines for these dis-
eases are included with measles vac-
cines in MMR shots.”
In addition to worries about the
take-up of the MMR vaccine, there
are also fears that immunisation pro-
grammes for dealing with conditions
that include Haemophilus infl uenzae
type b and whooping cough could also
become compromised. “The trouble
is that there is a growing questioning
about the safety of vaccines. People
in the UK tend to be more confi dent
about vaccines than individuals in
other nations but there are growing
numbers of groups raising doubts
about their safety,” said Larson.
However, there were not enough
GPs to answer all the questions peo-ple had about vaccines, she added.
“We need to have people in clin-
ics and surgeries where they can
answer questions and talk through
patients’ concerns. ”
One reason for the jump in cases,
said Larson, was the extraordinary
prevalence of the disease in the rest of
Europe and across the world, increas-
ing the risk of people being infected
and bringing it home.
This point was backed by Dr Mary
Ramsay, PHE’s head of immunisation.
“We’re continuing to see outbreaks of
the disease across the country, many
linked to visiting European countries
over the summer holidays,” she told
the Guardian last week. “It’s crucial
children have maximum protection
as they begin to mix with other chil-
dren at school .”
Larson added: “ We only achieved
measles-free status three years ago
and that took a lot of hard wor k. Now
we have to start again.”Robin McKie
Science EditorAbout 30,
children will now
start primary school
with no protection
against measles
Measles on the rise
Measles cases confirmed by quarter Source: Public Health England2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 20190100200300400