We must educate and vaccinate

In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that measles had been eliminated in the UK (WHO, 2017). This was due to the excellent immunisation programme by the NHS, which achieved enough coverage (90–95% of the population vaccinated) to lead to herd immunity. However, the term ‘elimination’ is misleading: it actually means that measles is no longer native to the UK, not that it has disappeared. In 2018, there were more than 900 cases of measles in England, which Public Health England believe are largely due to people who have travelled to areas of mainland Europe that have had outbreaks (Gov.uk, 2018).

The UK was on the verge of achieving elimination of measles in the 1990s. However, an article published in the Lancet in 1998, which claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, led to a drop in parents getting their children immunised. This was then was followed by large outbreaks of measles. The article has since been retracted and the author struck off the medical register; however, it hasn't stopped the ‘anti-vax’ movement gaining traction – there has been a steady decline in uptake of the vaccination over the last 5 years.