Britain’s health authorities were alerted because of it increase in measles cases attributed to low vaccination coverage.

The contagious viral infection, which can cause fatal complications and is spread through the air, was considered eliminated in the UK in 2016, 2017 and 2021.

But the figures, published at the beginning of the week by the British Health Safety Agency (UKHSA), speak for 198 confirmed cases and 104 possible cases from the end of October 2023 to the middle of January 2024 in the West Midlands region, 80% of which in the city of Birmingham.

People “have forgotten what measles is” UKHSA director Jenny Harris told the BBC this morning and called on parents to check if their children have actually had the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine.

Only about 85% of children arrive at school having had two doses of the vaccine, he pointed out, a percentage that drops to 81% in some areas of the West Midlands, while British health authorities aim to have 95% of schoolchildren vaccinated. .

“We need a call to action across the country,” he stressed.

In July, a study found that up to 20% of children starting school in London are not vaccinated. “Thankfully many families have come forward and children have been vaccinated, but rates remain low,” said Jenny Harris.

“It is quite common”, he underlines, “when it is considered that the risk has disappeared, care for vaccination is reduced”, even though it is a “serious disease”.

She also emphasized, addressed to members of the Muslim community, that there is a vaccine without pig derivatives.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), measles vaccination prevented 56 million deaths from 2000 to 2021.

In 2021, the number of deaths due to this disease was estimated at 128,000 worldwide, mostly among unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children under the age of five.

In 2022, 83% of the world’s children had received a dose of measles vaccine before their first birthday, the lowest rate since 2008, according to the WHO