“During the Covid-19 pandemic we saw a fall in uptake for the routine childhood vaccinations, including MMR, which leaves us vulnerable to outbreaks, especially as people travel abroad for summer holidays to places where measles is more common.”įour in 10 (40%) of the confirmed cases so far in 2023 were in children younger than five, and 27% were among people aged 15 to 34. “Measles spreads very easily and can lead to complications that require a stay in hospital and on rare occasions can cause lifelong disability or death, so it is very concerning to see cases starting to pick up this year,” she said. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (known as the MMR jab) is given to children in two doses, with the first administered at one year old and the second at three years and four months.ĭr Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA, said it was never too late to catch up on vaccinations, with the jabs free on the NHS. Teenagers and adults are also being urged to come forward if they have missed jabs. This can be done by checking their red book or contacting their GP.
Now experts say measles cases are rising once more: according to the UKHSA, between 1 January and 2 April this year, 49 cases of measles were confirmed in England, about two-thirds of which were in London.Įxperts are calling for parents and guardians to ensure their children are up to date with their MMR vaccinations. Surprisingly, it came simultaneously with no warning and left her paralyzed.Īlthough this is an excellent record of the progress of the disease, it is also a fascinating account of how an ordinary girl had to live for part of her adolescence in an artificial, restricted environment.Restrictions imposed during the Covid pandemic meant measles cases subsequently fell, with data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) revealing there were just two confirmed measles cases in 2021 and 54 in 2022. Perhaps the chiefly startling part of the book is her description of the sudden onset of the illness. Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio details the author’s diagnosis, treatment, frustration, and pain.
The author certainly writes in an approachable, familiar way, and readers will be hooked from the first page on. Out of all the people in the author’s hometown, polio only struck her that year. In 1949, families reported 42,000 cases of polio in the U.S. Although young readers today might only associate the word “polio” with a vaccination, this account gives them a well-written look at the devastating physical and emotional effects of the disease.
In Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, author Peg Kehret takes a hard, realistic look at polio.
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