Get your child the jab – that's the message for the coming year from Leeds health chiefs over the MMR vaccine.

Uptake rates in Leeds are about 80 per cent, with one in five children not having the full combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination by their second birthday.

Health bosses are warning that means some children could be vulnerable to serious illnesses.

NHS Leeds head of health protection Dr Simon Balmer said: "Nationally, there has been a drop in the number of children being immunised, which has caused an increase in the number of measles, mumps and rubella cases.

Some parents rejected the combined vaccine several years ago after a 1998 study linked it to autism and bowel disease. But more research since then has found no evidence of this.

However cases of measles have been increasing, thought to be because of the lower uptake of the MMR jab.
Nationally, more than 1,000 cases have been confirmed in the UK during 2008, already higher than the 990 recorded in the whole of 2007. In Leeds, there have been 24 cases of measles in 2008.