{"id":757606,"date":"2026-09-02T09:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/757606\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T09:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:56:10","slug":"birmingham-bottom-for-mmr-jabs-in-west-midlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/757606\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham bottom for MMR jabs in West Midlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

The figures are included in the UKHSA’s Annual COVER Data on Childhood Vaccines 2025-26, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It shows that across the West Midlands, around one in five children starting primary school this September, are not fully vaccinated against a range of potentially serious infections.<\/p>\n

Two doses of the MMR vaccine gives a child maximum protection against measles, mumps and rubella – in rare cases, measles can prove fatal.<\/p>\n

Separate data from the UKHSA shows that since January, there have been 81 cases of measles in Birmingham, external<\/a>, the second highest number for any local authority in England.<\/p>\n

There has been concern for some years about low levels of immunisation<\/a>, especially in urban parts of the region. Across England, more than 83% of children have both MMR doses by the age of five, although in London that figure is 70%. <\/p>\n

Angela Cartwright is a consultant in health protection at the UKHSA in the West Midlands.<\/p>\n

She said “It’s easy to forget that vaccinations save thousands of lives and prevent tens of thousands of hospital admissions every year.<\/p>\n

“Making sure children are fully protected before starting primary school is essential to keep them safe and give them the best opportunity to thrive at school.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The figures are included in the UKHSA’s Annual COVER Data on Childhood Vaccines 2025-26, external. It shows that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-757606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}