§ Mr. BerminghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if his Department is taking any measures to examine what limitations of the vaccine used against measles there may be; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. FreemanThe Department continues to monitor adverse events and reactions to all vaccines using the yellow card reporting system. The incidence of measles is also monitored and it is a notifiable disease.
The Medical Research Council continues its long-term (25-year) study of 10,000 recipients of measles vaccine.
§ Mr. BerminghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if there are any proposals to modify immunisation strategies for the measles virus; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. FreemanThere are no current plans to modify the present measles immunisation strategy. This strategy aims to continue to improve the uptake of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to achieve the elimination of measles as an indigenous disease by the year 2000, in accordance with the World Health Organisation's objective for its European region.
Uptake of measles-only vaccine in England in 1987–88 reached 76 per cent. and the incidence of measles in the first three quarters of 1989 is lower than that in any comparable previous period.