Falling vaccination levels which are leaving Irish children vulnerable to epidemics of infectious diseases such as measles and whooping cough have prompted a national campaign introduced yesterday to inform parents of the benefits of immunisation.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, and health experts outlined the dangers of the shortfall in vaccination levels with one in four children in some areas not being vaccinated. A figure of 90 per cent was necessary to protect against disease outbreaks but in some areas the rates were as low as 73 per cent.
They called for parents to be given accurate information and to be reassured that vaccination was the safest means of reducing the risk to children of contracting diseases which could lead to serious complications.
The Minister pointed particularly to the MMR vaccination against measles.
"There are indications already that the incidence of measles is on the increase at present, with a sharp rise in the number of cases notified to the Eastern Region Health Authority in the first weeks of this year," he said.
He referred to meningitis, whose incidence in Ireland was the highest in Europe, and said that later this year, a new conjugate vaccine to protect against Group C meningococcal disease was expected to be available.
Dr Brian Coffey, chairman of the Irish College of General Practioners, pointed out the dangers of "measles parties" where parents bring children to an infected home so that they could catch measles.
"There is a concept that catching measles naturally was better than a vaccination but there is no objective evidence for that. We say look at the evidence that out of every 1,000 children who get measles six will die and others will suffer from its effects, but this is entirely preventable," he stressed.
He attributed the low rates of uptake partly to administrative problems, which were being remedied, and to misinformation which caused fear and worry for parents.
The Irish Pharmaceutical Health Care Association president, Mr Michael Dempsey, pointed to another reason. "The very success of vaccines in radically reducing the levels of diseases like measles, polio and whooping cough has perhaps lulled some parents into a false sense of complacency."
The campaign launched in Dublin features Ireland's "millennium baby", Caroline McGarr, on thousands of leaflets and posters, to be distributed in GPs' surgeries, in health boards, and maternity hospitals.
Dr Dorina O'Flanaghan, director of the Irish National Disease Surveillance Unit, said there had been over 200 cases of measles in north Co Dublin this year. Last year in the whole of the US there were 86.
In 1993, three children died of measles in the State and since then there had been three more deaths. Measles was totally preventable, she said. In 1996, there was an epidemic of rubella which led to unborn babies being affected.