Measles outbreaks increasing globally
We know it’s a monstrous story with measles outbreaks in the USA and falling uptake of the MMR vaccine in England heavily reported a big on BBC 1 News but in Scotland, important news is missed.
Despite ongoing controversy (see below) NHS Scotland has achieved 96.6% adoption of the one-dose MMR vaccine by 5 years-of-age and has now beaten the 95% target for ten years. The uptake in England is only 91.2% and falling.
Though some might worry about vaccine overload (see below), for BBC Scotland, I’m sure a target is a target and failure to hit any target is a crisis in NHS Scotland.
Note: There is almost 100% support for the MMR vaccine among professionals. See: https://www.nursinginpractice.com/article/%E2%80%98children%E2%80%99s-immune-systems-are-being-overloaded-all-these-vaccines%E2%80%99
Talking-up Scotland 
If I remember correctly BBC 6’o clock news reporrateted an uptake rate in England of 87% for measles immunisation against a 95% target.
The Scottish child immunisation report was not published until Tuesday and showed an across the board 95% or better rate.
On Wednesday The Herald managed to report this as ‘concern for decline in…’ Certainly there had been some falls but they were generally of the 96.something to 95.something else variety.
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People need to not only protect their children with the MMR, but it protects everyone else too – aparently small pox would be wiped out by now through world wide immunisation projects, except for some strongholds where they don’t trust western doctors – and if a disease is gone it’s gone, we aren’t at risk any more.
I didn’t get the MMR as a child (not for any particular reason, not well enough when it was due and then no one got round to it) and I had mumps and measles, and they are not fun. I was pretty young when I had mumps & just vaguely remember not being able to eat much and it being sore. I had measles at maybe 13 or 14 and I was ILL, absolutely laid up, delirious, couldn’t eat or talk, needed help to get to toilet (not that I was needing to go much, wasn’t even drinking much water), for about 2 or 3 days (it was a long time ago), and could only shuffle about and eat soup for another 5 days. I believe even the parents were a bit worried, there was a kind of half-hearted vague admission to that effect anyway. You can die from measles. It’s like the worst flu ever. You can hardly breathe. Imagine you didn’t get your children immunised, and they gave measles to their poorly granny…
Anyway, it’s fantastic to see people in Scotland aren’t falling for the mass hysteria sweeping through other countries. Is England’s problem anti-vac ideology or poor health service provision?
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According to the BBC report earlier this week the anti-immunisation campaign on social media seemed to be a serious factor in the drop off and doctors wanted a social media campaign mounted to counter the anti-vaxers. Measles cases in England were said to be around 1000.
Some children cannot be vaccinated for sound medical reasons. For example, a baby with an allergy to eggs can’t get the measles vaccination because it is prepared in egg albumin. Inject that into them at your peril. Therefore for children like that the higher the uptake rate reduces the chances of a serious outbreak where they would be more likely to come into contact with the infection
I thought smallpox was completely eradicated?
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Nah, I saw a documentary quite a while ago – maybe things have changed in the last decade or so – for the life of me can’t remember the places, more remote areas in … Pakistan? Maybe? Religious leaders of the villages were preaching to the people that they’d go to hell or they’d lose their soul or something if they accepted the vaccination, so there is some resistance to it. So smallpox, mostly eradicated, but not enough to say there won’t ever be another outbreak (I should look it up! this is decades old news, too tired just now though)
Ugh so it’s anti-vaxers, (I prefer anti-vac, sounds like they don’t like hoovering). So England is a cesspit of disease? I go to England for my holidays! I suppose I’ve already had measles, but I wouldn’t want to be a carrier and bring it back here – you are exactly right Legerwood, some people can’t get the vaccination and are vulnerable. So so irresponsible to not get their children vaccinated.
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I think the last naturally occuring case of Smallpox was in 1977 in Somalia. Don’t think there have been any since. The CDC in Atlanta holds a stock of Smallpox and there is a stock in Russia.
I think the situation you are referring to in Pakistan was a vaccination programme against polio programme. People decided it was a Christian/CIA plot and attacked the medics – cue end of programme.
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Yep, sorry, small pox is the one that’s been eradicated – you are right, I must have been thinking of polio. I thought it was whooping cough that had been eradicated…
https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox
“The eradication of smallpox is therefore a major success story for global health for several reasons: it was a disease that was endemic (and caused high mortality rates) across all continents; but was also crucial to advances in the field of immunology. The smallpox vaccine was the first successful vaccine to be developed.”
but no, whooping cough is still around:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/decline-in-whooping-cough-cases-continues
Polio is nearly there:
“Even though the GPEI has not yet reached the goal of eradicating polio, it has been successful in reducing the prevalence of polio around the world: reported polio cases have been reduced by 99.99% and two of its three serotypes have already been eradicated. In 2017 the polio virus is endemic in three countries only: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan”
https://ourworldindata.org/polio
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Loved the caption from a GP surgery in Germany reading ‘ You don’t have to have all your children vaccinated just the ones you want to keep’
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