Disease prevention: Childhood immunisation coverage varies widely from country to country across Europe but poor vaccination coverage is by no means limited to less developed member states, an expert with the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
Dr Nedret Emiroglu said the Republic was among a number of better-off states where coverage for MMR for example was below the WHO target of having 95 per cent of the relevant population immunised.
Last year, she said, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK reported their coverage for the first dose of the measles-containing vaccine to be under 85 per cent. This is 10 per cent less than the WHO target.
But the programme manager for vaccine preventable diseases and immunisation with the WHO European region, said the Republic was not the worst for immunisation coverage in Europe.
In Dublin for the launch of European Immunisation Week, she spelt out the benefits of immunisation, saying it was estimated around three million deaths could be prevented by immunisation around the world every year.
She said 1.4 million children under five years of age died from vaccine preventable diseases each year around the world. This meant one child died every three minutes.
She also said immunisation was a child's right but some 600,000 children in the European region were still not even getting a basic vaccine to protect against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus every year. This was unacceptable, she said.
Dr Kevin Kelleher, Assistant National Director of Population Health with the HSE, said take up of the MMR vaccine in the Republic had been attributed to fears about the safety of the vaccine, even though all evidence confirmed it was safe. However, it now appeared when the situation was looked at closely that apathy was to blame for many not getting the vaccine. He said this apathy would be tackled during European Immunisation Week which aims to raise awareness about the importance of immunisation.
In addition the HSE would be providing information on immunisation in many different languages to target different populations in the State, he said.
The issue of immunisation and its importance is also to be incorporated into the biology curriculum for secondary school students next year.
The Minister for Health Mary Harney, who attended the launch, said immunisation is one of the most effective ways of preventing diseases. "Measles, mumps, rubella, all of these are preventable diseases and therefore it is important that we have an active immunisation programme for infants and young children and that's been under way for a number of years. Unfortunately some people still don't avail of immunisation and that's why it's important to have events such as this to heighten awareness."
Meanwhile the HSE has launched a website where the public can find information on all aspects of childhood and adult immunisation. It can be accessed at www.immunisation.ie