Health encyclopaedia

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Prevention of Measles

You should isolate your child from other children if you think they may be infected. Immunised children, and anyone who has already had measles, are extremely unlikely to catch measles.

The first MMR vaccination should be given to all children at around 13 months old, with a booster dose given before they start school (between 3 and 5 years old). Between 5 and 10% of children are not fully immune after the first dose, so the booster job helps to increase protection resulting in less than 1% remaining at risk.

Children who are too young to have been given the MMR vaccine and are exposed to the virus should be given an immunity injection within 5 days to protect them from catching measles.

Babies under 4 months will usually be immune from infection if the mother has had measles in the past because the mother’s protective antibodies will have passed to the child.

Although there are not many cases of measles in England there are around 30 million cases worldwide and around 1 million deaths; without immunisation the disease would spread causing an epidemic.

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