The mother of a 10-year-old girl who died from complications of measles has urged parents to have their children vaccinated amid a surge of cases.
Renae Archer was too young to have the MMR vaccine when she caught the infection at just five months old.
A decade later, she was diagnosed with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a very rare brain disease. She died in 2023.
Her mother Becky believes Renae might not have caught measles if more people had inoculated their children.
The warning comes as rates of vaccine uptake continue to fall. The recent death of a child with measles at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool put the focus on a surge of cases in a city with low levels of vaccination.
It has left communities with rates of vaccination below the 95% level seen to provide herd immunity, where enough people are protected to prevent the virus spreading.
Becky Archer said: “It does make me quite sad and angry because they are potentially putting their children at risk.
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“We just want people to open their eyes to someone that’s actually been through it and not the nonsense that’s being spread out on social media or on telly.
“I just want people to be knowledgeable of how serious a situation can be.”
The latest figures on childhood vaccination show that coverage in the UK has been falling in recent years and is now below that target of 95% for all vaccines by age five.
The vaccination rate for England is lower than in other UK nations, and particularly low in London.
Just 60% in Hackney have had their full measles vaccination course by their fifth birthday, compared to 89.2% on average across Scotland – though the rate in Scotland has also fallen from 93% a decade earlier.
Outside of London, the North West now has among the lowest vaccination rates for most of the main childhood vaccines.
Liverpool has the lowest measles vaccination rate outside of London, with more than a quarter of children not completing a full MMR vaccination course by their fifth birthday, according to the latest NHS figures for 2023/24.
Seventeen cases of measles have been recorded at Alder Hey in recent weeks, and doctors are reassuring parents that the vaccine is safe, free and available.
The hospital’s chief nurse Nathan Askew said: “Measles is often thought of as just a routine childhood illness but actually it’s incredibly contagious.
“The problem is that when that’s passed on, particularly in schools, nurseries and other environments where children are close together, there’s a real problem with children becoming unwell.”
Low immunisation rates have been blamed on vaccine hesitancy among parents, but experts say a lack of information on the importance and availability of vaccines is also a significant factor.
At a catch-up clinic in Liverpool, parents including Natalia Figeuroa have been bringing their children in. She admits she lost track of her son’s vaccinations, but worries that parents are being confused.
“I think parents are trying to make the right decision but the misinformation that’s out there is overclouding their judgement,” she said.
“My child attends a specialist provision which is a school that carries many children with disabilities, physically and mentally, and it’s really hard to see that those kids could be exposed to an illness that is quite preventable with a vaccine.
“I’m hoping parents will start to think not only about their own children but those other children who cannot get vaccinations for numerous reasons.”
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Becky Archer was due to give birth the day she was told that Renae’s condition was fatal.
She died a few days later, and her mother believes she would want her story told.
“She was really caring person and she wouldn’t have wanted any other family to go through losing their child,” she said.
