Health authorities alert GPs to measles and whooping cough outbreaks

GPs are seeing children with whooping cough and measles, sometimes for the first time in their career, amid the impact of waning vaccination rates.

Suspected cases of both measles and whooping cough have risen dramatically since 2022, and ICBs and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) are now warning of outbreaks in some areas.

In the last week of December, there were 55 suspected cases of measles across England and Wales, over a quarter of which were from the West Midlands.

While data on laboratory-confirmed cases is not yet available, UKHSA confirmed there have been a number of outbreaks in the West Midlands in recent months.

Birmingham GP Dr Fay Wilson told Pulse her colleagues have been ‘seeing and dealing with cases of suspected measles’ and this is ‘probably’ the first time some GPs have come across the disease if they trained in recent years.

‘It does slow everything down as rooms need to be cleaned up and we trace others who were in contact in waiting rooms etc. It’s a notifiable disease so we also notify UKHSA,’ she said.

Dr Jonathan Adamson, a consultant in paediatric emergency medicine at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, said in a post on X that he had ‘genuinely never seen a child with measles’ throughout his career until two weeks ago – he has ‘seen multiple every day since’.

‘Not a single one in a child who had their MMR (even just first dose if not old enough for their preschool booster yet),’ he added.

Birmingham and Solihull ICB has warned in public communications that cases are rising in the West Midlands and urged people to get two doses of the MMR vaccine.

In Essex, GPs received a warning from UKHSA before Christmas of ‘a number of cases’ of Pertussis (or whooping cough) in the community, all of which were unvaccinated.

However, UKHSA warned that ‘there can be waning immunity’ even with vaccination.

The advice to GPs added: ‘Please be aware that potential cases may present to your services, and we advise consideration of testing patients for Pertussis if they have clinically compatible symptoms.’

In November, UKHSA warned that maternal vaccination against whooping cough had fallen.

• Vaccine coverage was 60.7% in the 2022/23 financial year, compared to 64.7% and 67.8% in the two previous years respectively.

• The total number of whooping cough notifications to the agency in 2023 across England and Wales was 1737, which is more than three times the number in 2022, when it was 553 suspected cases.

• For measles, there were 1618 suspected cases in 2023, compared with 730 in 2022.

• While there is a lag in reporting for confirmed cases, the most recent UKHSA data showed that in the first 10 months of 2023 there were 167 cases in England, which is well above the total number for 2022, when there were 53 confirmed cases.

GPs in England were recently asked to participate in a catch-up campaign for the MMR vaccine amid rising cases of measles.

And in November, GPs were urged to consider a diagnosis of measles when treating children this winter due to a concerning drop in immunisation coverage.

In September, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it was ‘seriously concerned’ about an ongoing downward trend in uptake of childhood vaccines.

The agency’s annual figures showed that in England MMR vaccine uptake for first and second doses by five years has fallen to the lowest rates since 2010/11. 

And no vaccines met the World Health Organisation (WHO) 96% uptake target in England.