The Labour Party's spokeswoman on health has described as a "shocking failure" by the Minister for Health reports that health boards are bracing themselves for a measles epidemic.
"The message is simply not getting through that measles can be a killer disease and can cause permanent health damage," Ms Liz McManus said.
For a measles vaccination to be successful, "it is essential that there is a 90 per cent vaccination rate among children. At present, no health board has succeeded in reaching that level," she said.
In a statement yesterday, the National Disease Surveillance Centre again strongly urged that children be vaccinated against measles. Figures to December 23rd last indicated that there were 1,597 cases of measles in the State last year, compared to just 148 cases in 1999.
Of last year's figure, 1,248 cases were in the Eastern Regional Health Authority area, with two children dying from the disease in the area last year.
The centre's director, Dr Darina O'Flanagan, said some vaccination uptake levels against measles were as low as 73 per cent to 75 per cent when they should be at least 95 per cent. Measles is an acute infection which usually occurs in children aged between one and four. It is highly infectious and can be caught through direct contact with a carrier or through coughing or sneezing. Complications include croup, eye and/or ear infections, pneumonia and possible inflammation of the brain. The vaccine is free and is available from any family doctor.
Britain's Public Health Laboratory Service warned yesterday that thousands of children were at risk of contracting measles because of the low uptake of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. In some areas of Britain, one child in four has not received the MMR vaccine because some parents fear it can cause autism or Krohn's disease. In the past 10 years, immunisation levels have fallen from 92 per cent to 75 per cent in some parts of London.
The uptake of the vaccine in Northern Ireland among two-year-olds is 92.7 per cent.
The medical director of the service, Prof Brian Duerden, said the low uptake was "serious". Urging parents to have their children immunised, he said the vaccine had been looked at in great detail because of concerns which were raised and was found not to be linked to those side-effects. The Conservative Party's Health Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, described the immunisation levels as alarming. He said children "have died from the disease in Ireland and the Netherlands. We must not let that happen here."