Press release - 7 June 2010

Launch of Brighton and Hove Immunisation Week

Brighton and Hove’s first ever Immunisation Week is being held across the city from 7 June to promote the local vaccination programme and to encourage parents to have their children immunised against potentially serious illnesses.

The awareness-raising week, run by NHS Brighton and Hove in partnership with the Children & Young People’s Trust, particularly targets parents and follows recent local outbreaks of measles and mumps which caused serious complications for some children.  

• As part of the week, immunisation information is being distributed to local Children’s Centres, nurseries, pre-school groups, pharmacies and libraries.
• The city’s newly appointed immunisation specialist nurse Rosanna Raven will also be on board NHS Brighton and Hove’s community health bus next Wednesday (9 June) to answer people’s vaccination queries or concerns.

“It’s vital that people understand the benefits of immunisation and have their children vaccinated,”

said Brighton and Hove’s director of public health Dr Tom Scanlon.

“Babies, children and young people are still catching preventable diseases and, sadly, risk serious and sometimes permanent health consequences.  Local immunisation uptake rates are rising, but they need to be higher still to offer the best possible protection to all.”

Across Brighton and Hove, latest validated figures for 2008-09 show that:

• Around 90% of one-year-olds have been vaccinated against a number of infections including diphtheria, tetanus, polio, whooping cough, meningitis C and haemophilus influenzae type b (which can cause blood poisoning and pneumonia).
• MMR uptake is at last on the increase. Around 82% of children have had an MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination by their second birthday, which is a rise from around 67% in mid-2003. By their fifth birthday 69% have had their first and second MMR immunisation - having two doses gives the best protection.
• The city’s immunisation percentage rates for many vaccines, though rising, are among the lowest across the south east coast region.

Children in this country are protected by one of the best immunisation programmes in the world, which has helped to ensure that many potentially fatal infections, such as diphtheria and polio, have become unusual rather than common occurrences.

New vaccines are also being introduced to increase children and young people’s safety – for example, the recently introduced HPV vaccine for young girls protects against cervical cancer in later life.

• Uptake in Brighton and Hove has been above the regional average with provisional figures for September 2009 to March 2010 showing that over 90% of eligible 12-13 year olds had their first dose of the HPV vaccine.

Most parents do have their children immunised. However, concerns raised about vaccination such as the MMR can affect immunisation rates, though MMR rates are now rising after concerns that it was linked to bowel disease and autism were discredited by independent experts.  Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who triggered the scare, was recently struck off the medical register.

“Our immunisation teams are working hard to increase the uptake of all vaccinations,” said Dr Scanlon.

“We hope that our Immunisation Week will stress to parents the importance of having their children immunised and, if they have concerns, will prompt them to speak to a health professional such as their practice nurse or health visitor so they can make an informed choice.”

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Ends

Notes to Editors

• The two public health interventions that have had the greatest impact on the world’s health are clean water and vaccines – World Health Organisation.

• More than half of the 15 million people a year who die from infectious diseases around the world are children aged under five.  Most of these deaths could be prevented by immunisation.

• Before the diphtheria vaccine was introduced in this country, there were up to 70,000 cases of diphtheria a year, causing up to 5,000 deaths.

• Before the whooping cough vaccine was introduced, the average number of cases of whooping cough reported each year in the UK was 120,000 and 92 children died in the year before the vaccine was introduced.

• Before the introduction of the polio vaccine, there were up to 8,000 cases of polio in the UK in epidemic years.  Thanks to the continuing success of the vaccination, there have been no cases of natural polio infection in the UK for over 20 years.

• More information is available from www.dh.gov.uk/immunisation 

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