London children 'catching up' with the MMR vaccine

London children who missed out on MMR jabs are beginning to "catch up" with the vaccine, new figures show.

There has been an increase in the number of children given two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella jab between the ages of two and five.

The first dose should be given by the age of 13 months and a second before children are five.

But the number of babies being inoculated dropped so low that the Government introduced a catch-up campaign last summer targeting everyone up to the age of 18.

Latest figures from the NHS Information Centre show the number of London children between two and five given both doses of the vaccine rose from 49 per cent last year to 63 per cent this year.

Nationally the figure rose from 74 per cent to 78 per cent.

But uptake of the vaccine for children reaching their second birthday has been the same — 85 per cent — for three years, despite extensive campaigns.

In the mid-Nineties just over 90 per cent of children received the MMR vaccine but that dropped to 80 per cent in 2003/2004 after an autism scare.

Today's figures also show 70 per cent of girls in school year eight have been given all three doses of the cervical cancer vaccine since the programme started a year ago.