A person who attended Wrexham Maelor Hospital in North Wales has been found to have had measles as experts fear the UK faces the worst outbreak of the infection in 12 years
A person who attended a hospital in North Wales has been found to have had measles.
Public Health Wales (PHW) said the person, who lives in England, went to Wrexham Maelor Hospital and people who had been in close contact with them had been urged to check their vaccination records.
It comes as experts are warning of a ‘measles emergency’ as the country faces the biggest outbreak of the virus since 2012 – with new figures painting a grim picture for the months ahead.
Almost 900 cases of the virus have been recorded in 2024 so far, compared with 368 cases recorded 2023, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), meaning England has seen more cases of the disease in the first four months of this year, than in the whole of last year.
Last year’s outbreak, which began in the West Midlands, has now also spread to every region of the country, with London named as one of the top hotspots. Roughly two-thirds of those affected are under the age of 10, although cases are also being reported in young adults who were not vaccinated some twenty five years ago. The MMR vaccine was first introduced in the UK in 1968, but up-take rates have been falling year on year.
Dr Helen Bedford, Professor of Children’s Health at UCL, said current vaccine uptake figures are too low to keep the virus at bay, and cases will only rise if they remain stagnant. She said: “This is the biggest outbreak of measles we’ve had since 2012. We’ve had more cases in the first four months of this year than in the whole of last year.
“The main reason for that is vaccine uptake figures – for all vaccines, not just MMR – figures have been going down very slightly year-on-year for the last ten years. Our uptake for the MMR vaccines overall for England is 89.3% for the first dose, and 84.5% for the second dose.
“But the big, important thing about measles is that it is incredibly infectious. It is the most infectious respiratory disease around, and because of that, we need to have very very high levels of vaccine uptake. We need at least 95% for both doses.”
