A child’s death from measles in Britain has sparked calls from officials urging parents to get their children vaccinated
LONDON, July 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A child’s death from measles has sparked urgent calls from British public health officials to get children vaccinated, as the United Kingdom faces an onslaught of misinformation on social media, much of it from the United States.
Measles is a highly infectious disease that can cause serious complications. It is preventable through double MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jabs in early childhood.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting on July 14 confirmed to parliament that a child had died in the UK of measles.
No details have been released, but local newspapers reported the child had been severely ill with measles and other serious health problems in Alder Hey hospital in the northwestern city.
Anti-vaxxers quickly posted unconfirmed claims about the death on social media.
One British influencer, Ellie Grey, who has more than 200,000 followers on Instagram, posted a video denying the child died from measles.
“Measles isn’t this deadly disease… it’s not dangerous,” she said.
Grey criticised Alder Hey for posting a video “really, really pushing and manipulating parents into getting the MMR vaccine”.
Her video was reposted by another British influencer, Kate Shemirani, a struck-off ex-nurse who posts health conspiracy theories.
“No vaccine has ever been proven safe and no vaccine has ever been proven effective,” Shemirani claimed falsely.
Liverpool’s public health chief Matthew Ashton attacked those “spreading misinformation and disinformation about childhood immunisations” in the Echo newspaper, saying “they need to take a very long, hard look at themselves”.
“For those of you that don’t know, measles is a really nasty virus,” he said in a video, adding that the jab is a way of “protecting yourself and your loved ones.”
Alder Hey said it had treated 17 children with measles since June.
It posted a video in which a paediatric infectious diseases consultant, Andrew McArdle, addresses measles “myths”, including that the MMR jab causes autism.
This false claim comes from a debunked 1998 study by a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who was later struck off.
But it sparked an international slump in vaccinations.
Benjamin Kasstan-Dabush, a medical anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said there were still “lingering questions around the Wakefield era”.
He talked to parents who had delayed vaccinating their children, finding reasons included life events and difficulty getting health appointments, but also misinformation.
In a video in response to the reported death, Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist, explained the MMR jab protects others, including those “receiving treatment like chemotherapy that can weaken or wipe out their immunity”. — NNN-AGENCIES
