Wednesday 11 May 2011

Measles Outbreak - Safe to travel to France?

So there I was last week happily reading the school newsletter when suddenly I came across a warning of a measles outbreak in France. Over 3000 cases have been recorded so far this year in France and guess who has got a family holiday booked there this summer? The older children are fully immunised but Baby T will be less than 6 months old when we go so will not have had her MMR.

We did what most people would have done which is nothing for a couple of days then started panicking. We googled Measles situation in France and learnt that last year the recorded cases for France were 5000. So it is significantly up.

I then rang NHS Direct who knew nothing about an outbreak. Then I tried the Doctor who suggested trying the Nurse who said to try the Health Protection Agency - Who were fab!!

They rang me back within half an hour, asked whereabouts we were going and how long for. We then had quite a long conversation about surfing but thats a post for another time!

The results are. Safe to travel with a baby even though not fully immunised. The warnings going out to Doctors surgeries and schools are aimed at reminding parents who have not had their children immunised to do so as soon as poss. It is mostly groups of teenagers that are contracting measles. If we were travelling abroad for 2 months or more, we may be advised to bring forward Baby T's MMR but even then this is unlikely as she is so young and may still have some of my natural antibodies. (Aw!)

So there we are, still going to France and another trauma is over for another day!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for posting that- we've just had the same letter and I was starting to worry about our holiday to france and our little one.

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