Parents urged to get children vaccinated after measles death in Liverpool
Health officials have urged people to come forward for the measles vaccine if they are not up to date with their shots after a child at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool died from the disease.The city has experienced a surge in cases among young people, with the hospital warning parents last week that the spike in infections was due to falling rates of uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.The child was ill with measles and other health problems and was receiving treatment at the Alder Hey, according to the Sunday Times.A statement from the Alder Hey Children’s NHS trust said: “To respect patient confidentiality, we can’t comment on individual cases.”Uptake of the vaccine has fallen across the country in the past decade with rates across England now at 84%.
In Liverpool, only 73% of children aged five have received the necessary two shots, while in parts of London uptake is below 65%.To ensure herd immunity, where enough people are protected to prevent the virus spreading, vaccination rates must hit 95%.“The NHS MMR vaccine gives lifelong protection against becoming seriously unwell, so with cases of measles on the rise, it is not worth the risk of going without this vital protection,” said Chris Streather, the medical director for the NHS in London.“Measles, mumps and rubella are preventable, but catching them is easy when people are unvaccinated, so I urge people to come forward and get the MMR vaccine sooner, rather than later,” he added.Herd immunity is particularly important to reduce the risk of vulnerable people being exposed to the virus.
Children with suppressed immune systems, for example, can still fall seriously ill with measles even if they have had the vaccine.Dr Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency, said measles was one of the most highly infectious diseases and spreads easily among people who are unvaccinated.“Speaking as a doctor and a mother, I strongly encourage all parents to ensure their children have the best possible protection but also to think about protecting other more vulnerable children,” she said.“Please act now to ensure your children are fully protected.You can check their immunisation red book or speak with the GP surgery.
”Childhood vaccination programmes have been extremely effective at preventing infections and serious illness among children over the past 50 years, but falling rates of uptake have led to a rise in cases and deaths.“It’s heartbreaking because it’s entirely preventable,” said Helen Bedford, a professor of children’s health at University College London.“No child needs to even catch the disease let alone be seriously affected or die.”Vaccine hesitancy is often blamed for declines in immunisation rates, but much of the problem is driven by a lack of information on the importance of vaccines, knowing which shots are due when, and difficulties in getting appointments.Last week, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said there was a “critical need” to shift the focus from vaccine hesitancy to addressing the barriers and access issues that families face.
“A lot of this is simple.We know that reminding parents is very effective because people have busy lives and these things can often be forgotten,” Bedford said.“It’s about people not knowing what’s due and when, or how to go about getting it, and every day we see stories about how difficult it is to make GP appointments.We need a multi-pronged approach and to think more creatively about how services are set up and how and where they’re offered.”“Overall, the vaccine programme is so successful that people don’t have experience of the disease any more,” Bedford added.
“Last year was the highest number of confirmed cases we’ve seen since the 1990s.Most people, most young parents, have never experienced a really sick child and it can be difficult to advise parents about a disease that they’ve got no conception of.”
Genocide prevention could become legal priority for UK government
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Darren Jones has spent much of the past few months doing the traditional, hard-nosed job of a Treasury chief secretary – fighting line-by-line budget battles with ministers. But with last month’s fraught spending review over, he has turned his attention to an issue closer to his heart for his latest policy.“The council estate I grew up on was one of the neighbourhoods that was picked by the New Labour government because it was so deprived, essentially, in terms of income and educational outcomes,” he says.The 38-year-old MP for Bristol North West grew up in a flat on the Lawrence Weston estate. His mother was a hospital administrator and his father a security guard, and he has previously spoken about how money was sometimes tight at home
Charlotte Church joins unions and campaigners in opposing ban on Palestine Action
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UK government announces £63m funding for EV charging infrastructure
The transport secretary has promised to make it “easier and cheaper” to buy electric cars, as the government announces £63m worth of funding to help build charging infrastructure.Heidi Alexander said on Sunday she wanted to make it more affordable to switch to electric vehicles as she announced new money for councils and other bodies to spend on facilities to charge cars.She announced £63m worth of funding for EV charging, with officials also finalising plans for a £700m package of subsidies to bring down the cost of buying a new electric car.The money still falls short of the £950m pledged by the Conservatives for motorway charging points, however, which the Labour government scrapped last month, accusing the previous government of having failed to set aside funding for it.UK-made EVs are expected to receive the most generous subsidies under the scheme, which would probably benefit the Japanese carmaker Nissan, which is gearing up to produce a new version of its Leaf electric car in Sunderland
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Every parent who battled their way through home schooling during the long months of lockdown, and every vulnerable person forced to shield themselves away, can have had little doubt that the Covid pandemic was an unhappy time.But research by the non-profit consultancy Pro Bono Economics (PBE), suggests that the nation’s wellbeing has never fully recovered from the plunge it took in mid-2020.Happiness – or wellbeing, or life satisfaction – seems a slippery concept to measure, but economists have been studying and tracking how the public are feeling about their lives for decades.In the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has done this since 2011 by asking four questions, including: “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life?” and: “Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?”As the first lockdown took hold, the anxiety measure spiked, not surprisingly, while the other three, which track respondents’ satisfaction, happiness and sense of purpose, all had marked declines.Given the shadow the pandemic cast over so many people’s lives, it feels intuitively right that on none of these four metrics has wellbeing in the UK returned to the pre-Covid equilibrium
Most people in France, Germany, Italy and Spain would support UK rejoining EU, poll finds
A decade after MPs voted to hold the referendum that led to Britain leaving the European Union, a poll has found majorities in the bloc’s four largest member states would support the UK rejoining – but not on the same terms it had before.The YouGov survey of six western European countries, including the UK, also confirms that a clear majority of British voters now back the country rejoining the bloc – but only if it can keep the opt-outs it previously enjoyed.The result, the pollster said, was a “public opinion impasse”, even if there seems precious little likelihood, for the time being, of the UK’s Labour government, which this year negotiated a “reset” with the bloc, attempting a return to the EU.YouGov’s EuroTrack survey showed that at least half of people asked across the four largest EU nations – France, Germany, Italy and Spain – supported the UK being allowed to rejoin, with percentages ranging from 51% in Italy to 53% in France, 60% in Spain and 63% in Germany.Asked whether Britain should be allowed back in on the conditions it enjoyed when it left, however, including not having to adopt the euro currency and remaining outside the Schengen passport-free zone, the numbers changed significantly
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