Measles surge causes alarm: what scientists think. A drastic rise in infections in the United Kingdom and Europe follows a drop in vaccine uptake.

by WornOutShovel

13 comments

  1. > Vaccination rates are lowest in London, where just 74% of children have received two doses of the vaccine. Two doses are 97% effective against catching measles. One local council in the capital has launched a vaccine awareness campaign in multiple languages to reach more people.

    > Without further action, the outbreak could spread more widely across the United Kingdom, causing deaths, says Bedford.

  2. Absolute idiots. Putting their kids and everyone else at risk by not getting them vaccinated

  3. > Moreover, the pandemic might have caused people to question vaccine safety, which might have delayed uptake, says Bedford. “People have got more questions, which, unfortunately, due to cuts in public health funding, aren’t always properly addressed,” she says. 

     The reason isn’t because there isn’t enough funding to address questions – what would that even look like, a vaccination hotline? Its more like the fact that it relies very heavily on public trust, which tends to decline when its abused.

  4. This is the problem when you allow idiots to make their own choices, despite knowing it will impact others. How has a health and science issue turned into a political one anyway? I’m site they’ll change their mind once they start planning a funeral instead of a birthday

  5. Unless there’s a medical reason, not vaccinating your child is tantamount to child abuse for me.

    There’s no sensible reason for not doing so, to protect them from complex side effects or the risk of greater illness.

  7. >Vaccination rates are lowest in London

    Yeah, but everyone in this thread is blaming ‘facebook mums’….

    >Many of the cases were linked to international travellers returning to the country, and reflect a rise in measles cases globally

  8. It’s all about fear and mistrust in authorities. I can understand why when you look at who’s in charge. Also of all the anti vaxxers I’ve come across there isn’t a decent science gcse between them. Fear and ignorance is a deadly combo.

  9. In a morbid way, we might need this to happen to remind people why we have vaccines in the first place. Growing up in the 90s (before Andrew Wakefield) meant nearly everyone my age was vaccinated against measles and I never knew anyone to catch it. Out of all the diseases we had childhood vaccinations against, I knew of one person getting mumps and that was it. Measles was a disease I read about in secondary school science lessons regarding the effectiveness of vaccines and vaccine campaigns. People my age have no experience of how bad it really can be and so might be more inclined to think vaccines against it are not necessary. It should not be like this but seeing their child in the ICU because they did not get them vaccinated might spur them to champion childhood vaccines again.

  11. Start targetting the people that don’t vaccinate and start putting things behind a “provided your kids are vaccinated” wall. Child benefits? Provided your kids are vaccinated. Child tax credits? Provided your kids are vaccinated. Childcare allowance? Provided your kids are vaccinated. You won’t get the rich ones, but there are other ways of going after the rich ones. Make it really fucking hurt not to get your kids vaccinated.

    Naturally there are going to be kids that can’t be vaccinated due to some underlying health issue, but that won’t be for the parents to diagnose.

  13. Gosh I wonder which population groups are largely responsible.

Leave a Reply