Emergency £1.8m to fight off measles 'epidemic'

Ministers have set up a £1.8 million immunisation fund amid fears an epidemic could rage out of control.

They are calling on all parents to take their children for the measles, mumps and rubella jab MMR after immunisation levels fell to a dangerous low.

Scores are falling ill across the capital, which accounts for 70 per cent of all measles cases nationwide.

In the first five months of this year there were 257 measles cases, compared with 167 in the whole of last year. Lewisham and Hackney are worst hit.

Today ministers announced that each Primary Care Trust in the capital will be given £60,000 to spend on vaccinating every child under the age of 18. PCTs in the rest of the country will be given just £30,000.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said London was getting the extra cash boost because it was lagging so far behind the rest of the country.

Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson will write to all PCTs in the country today urging them to take part in the MMR "catch up" programme.

His letter said: "Following a decade of relatively low vaccine uptake there is now a large number of children who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated with MMR. The potential exposure-of a large number of unprotected children means that there is a real risk of a large measles epidemic."

He said more than 100,000 children are at risk of measles, as well as mumps and rubella, and the chances of an outbreak are greatest in London.

Professor David Salisbury, director of Immunisation at the Department of Health, said: "Parents who have not had their children vaccinated with the MMR vaccine should do so now. The evidence on MMR is absolutely clear - there is no link between the vaccine and autism.

"The MMR vaccine coverage is not high enough to remove the threat of recurrence of measles outbreaks. Measles is serious and in some cases it can be fatal. Delaying immunisation puts children at risk." It is thought that three million children have missed either their first or second MMR vaccination.

The Evening Standard revealed in June that a teenager died from a strain of measles identical to one that has been circulating in London. It was the second measles death in Britain in 16 years.

Levels of vaccination dropped after claims MMR may be linked to autism, with barely 60 per cent of children immunised in parts of London such as Greenwich.