DOCTORS are monitoring one of the largest measles outbreak in Scotland for almost 20 years. So far 12 people in three families have been affected.

Doctors said yesterday that in Dumfries and Galloway there had been three confirmed cases in adults, aged 38 and 39, one possible case in a child, and eight suspected cases in children, aged between 3 to 15.

The first case was confirmed on March 17 and yesterday the numbers affected rose from eight to 12 in a matter of hours, although none has needed hospital treatment.

All the new cases involve children from the village of New Galloway, and include pupils from Kells Primary School.

The common thread is that none of those affected has been immunised with the MMR vaccine and parents from affected families have rejected an offer to vaccinate healthy siblings.

David Breen, public health consultant at NHS Dumfries and Galloway, said such attitudes were “frustrating” but had to be respected.

“None of them has been prepared to let their other children be vaccinated,” he said. “At the moment all we can do is investigate each case and look at the contacts they have had in the four days before the rash appeared. If any are high-risk, then they will be offered vaccination.”

Pupils have now broken-up for the Easter holidays which may help to contain the outbreak.

Dr Breen said that it was possible that there would be more cases in the coming weeks. “There is a pool of unprotected people who have, for their own reasons, not received the MMR vaccine up the West Coast and in Glasgow,” he said.

“I would ask people to reconsider and to protect their children with two doses of MMR vaccine. There is plenty of vaccine available.

“We are not talking about an infection that can’t be prevented. It can and we could cut this outbreak down if everybody went and got immunised.”

The source of the cluster has not been identified, but fears that it might be linked to the travelling community have been ruled out. A 13-year-old boy from a group of travellers in North West England died recently from measles, the first fatality from the disease since 1992. In recent years measles outbreaks have been rare. There was just one reported case of the disease in Scotland last year, and the largest clusters have numbered just three or four cases in West Lothian, Argyll and Clyde.

This week it emerged that six nurses were treated for measles at Central Middlesex Hospital in North London after catching the disease from infected children. The current outbreak in Scotland is thought to be the largest since the MMR was introduced in 1988, although Dumfries and Galloway has a 95 per cent uptake of MMR, the highest in Scotland.

Measles is spread through the air by coughing and sneezing and is contagious four days before and after the rash appears. The incubation period is about 21 days.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Vanessa George and the evil that women do
• Three-minute poetry? It’s all the rage
• Who will go in to bat for crime’s victims?