California Measles outbreak – the latest vaccine scare

The subject of vaccinations is back in the news after state officials in California confirmed dozens of cases of the highly infectious disease. It is believed a person infected with measles was staying at the Californian theme park in December before infecting others.

Concerns about the side effects of vaccines have led many parents to stop their children from being immunised, and this mistrust of vaccines can leave a legacy.

Ignorance-based anti-vaccine movement in US aids measles resurgence http://t.co/ut4YZwWoOn pic.twitter.com/VvSA9jW180

— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) January 23, 2015

MMR

This combined vaccine, which treats measles, mumps and rubella, was introduced in the UK in 1988 and is available across the world. Each year, millions of doses are administered but doubts were cast on its use after it was linked to autism.

A study by discredited doctor Andrew Wakefield, published in the Lancet in 1998, suggested the jab increased the chances of being autistic and suffering from Crohn’s disease.

By the time the Sunday Times revealed in 2004 that the Legal Aid Board funded the research and that many of the children were litigants, many parents had already prevented their children from having the combined jab. Although single vaccines were possible, at its lowest fewer than eight in 10 children were vaccinated against MMR.

In 2010, the Lancet retracted the 1998 paper, with its editor denouncing elements of it as “utterly false”. Dr Wakefield was struck off the medical register later that year, having been found guilty of paying children £5 for blood samples at his son’s birthday party.

In 2012-3, the biggest measles single outbreak since the controversy in Wales saw more than 1,000 people infected with the disease. Last year, more than 600 cases of measles were reported across 27 US states.

Polio

Almost eradicated, this disease which mainly affects children aged under five, has not been completely wiped out due to difficulties vaccinating young children.

Suspicion that drops of the vaccine are a western plan to sterilise Muslim children, or infect them with Aids, are barriers to widespread immunisation in countries including Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

In the northern Nigerian town of Kano, polio immunisation was banned for nearly a year until vaccines arrived from the predominantly Muslim country of Indonesia. According to the World Health Organization, in the 11-month break the disease spread to 13 other African countries which had been polio-free as well as, ironically Indonesia.

Attacks on health workers by the Taliban have also made immunisation more difficult. Five women working on a UN-backed vaccination campaign were shot dead in Karachi and Peshawar at the end of 2012.

Whooping cough

In Japan in the 1970s, mandatory pertussis vaccines for infants were halted by the government amid concerns over the adverse neurological effects of the jab. In 1974, four in five children were being immunised, but this dropped to 10 per cent by 1976 and by the end of the decade 41 infants had died, with more than 13,000 cases reported.

According to Public Health England, it “can cause serious and life-threatening complications” including pneumonia, apnoea (difficulty breathing) and seizures. Infants under six months can suffer severe complications and are the most likely to die from pertussis