Fears rise over mumps epidemic

London is on the brink of a potentially fatal mumps outbreak, the Evening Standard can reveal.

Cases of mumps in the capital have almost quadrupled in the last five years, from just 29 in 1996 to 112 last year, according to unpublished figures from the Public Health Laboratory Service.

In the first quarter of this year there was a 30 per cent rise in confirmed cases, compared to the previous three months.

With up to a third of children in some London boroughs being left unvaccinated amid fears about the safety of the MMR three-in-one vaccine, public health chiefs say there is now a very real risk of an outbreak of the disease which could harm or even kill children

Doctors and clinics across London say they have been without supplies of the mumps vaccine for up to six months and have not been told when they can expect fresh stocks.

They are worried that parents are going ahead with the measles and rubella single vaccines but are leaving their children unprotected against mumps.

Next month, when hundreds of thousands of pupils go back to school, they fear unvaccinated children could spread the disease, causing a major outbreak. Dr Mary Ramsay of the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) said: "People should not be complacent about this - mumps can be a very dangerous disease.

"It is highly infectious and you don't need much contact with an infected person to catch it.

"Before we had a vaccine against mumps, we were seeing around five deaths a year from it. If you have an unimmunised population, there are very real risks associated with this disease."

Mumps can also cause meningitis, encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and infertility among boys.

Uptake of MMR has fallen dramatically in the last three years, amid concerns that it is linked to autism, bowel disease and other disorders in children.

Holborn GP Dr Richard Halvorsen said: "I haven't been able to get single mumps for six months but parents are still going down the single vaccines route than taking MMR."

Dr Halvorsen added: "Parents will not be pressurised into having MMR simply because there is a shortage of the single vaccines. We need to give these parents the choice because otherwise we will have a very real public health crisis on our hands.

"Nobody - least of all parents - wants to see a return of measles and mumps but these people simply do not trust what the Government is saying about MMR."

Croydon pharmacist Andrew McCoig has more than 200 parents waiting for the mumps vaccine. He said: "I managed to get hold of two doses a couple of months ago but apart from that, I have had none and don't know when I will get new supplies."

A spokeswoman for the Eltham-based clinic Direct Health 2000 said: "We have no mumps vaccine and I don't know anyone in the country who does."

Nationwide, mumps cases have risen by more than fivefold since 1997, when Dr Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free Hospital first published research which raised questions about the safety of MMR and a possible link to autism.

There were 131 confirmed cases of mumps in England and Wales in the first three months of this year, compared to 99 in the previous quarter.