The Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) is urging parents to have their children vaccinated following 16 reported new cases of measles in the last week, four times the usual amount.
Stressing the severity of the illness, the ERHA director, Dr Brian O'Herlihy, appealed to all parents to have their children immunised with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine promptly on reaching one year of age.
Only 77 per cent of two-year-old children in the Eastern region had received the MMR vaccine, according to data provided by the National Disease Surveillance Centre (NDSC) for the fourth quarter of 2003.
The rate of vaccination in the Eastern region was the second-lowest among the Republic's eight regions. The Western region featured the lowest vaccination rate, 76 per cent.
An uptake rate of 95 per cent is required to protect children from the diseases and stop their spread.
"I am concerned about the unsatisfactory MMR immunisation uptake rates because of the risk of unimmunised children contracting the potentially serious diseases," the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin told the Dáil last month.
Approximately one in 15 children who contract measles "suffer serious complications", he said.
The sharp upswing in measles cases in the Eastern region this week brought warnings from the health authority that it "could leave the way open to a measles epidemic" like the one that occurred in 2000, which led to three deaths and approximately 2,000 reported cases.