Sir, – Childhood immunisation rates stalled in 2023, according to new data published this month by UN agencies, leaving around 2.7 million children lacking the protection they need compared to the pre-Covid 19 levels of 2019.
The latest Irish vaccination data reveals that childhood vaccination figures remain well below best practice targets to prevent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in communities. This is a key factor in the rising number of pertussis (whooping cough) cases in 2024, mirroring what is happening in Europe, the UK and Northern Ireland. The figures for measles cases and measles outbreaks in 2024 are also rising. Globally, over the last five years, measles outbreaks hit 103 countries – home to roughly three quarters of the world’s infants. And so it plays out. This year, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre have reported 75 confirmed cases of measles involving 12 outbreaks across the country.
The reality is that these outbreaks are preventable.
According to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, between 2000 and 2019 – astoundingly, we had achieved an almost 80 per cent to 90 per cent decline in under five-year-old childhood deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria and meningitis.
Those extraordinary successes have allowed us to become complacent about the priority to maintain high vaccination rates to protect children from completely preventable complicated childhood illnesses with high rates of mortality among vulnerable unvaccinated communities. High numbers of measles cases this year are the canary in the coalmine. Increasing numbers of children with pertussis have followed.
Plans to ensure vaccination of every child from every demographic and ethnic community in Ireland – citizens and immigrants alike – is now an urgent priority. – Yours, etc,
Dr CATHERINE CONLON,
Ballintemple,
Cork.