Why the UK is lagging behind other countries on measles vaccinations

The UK is the worst-performing G7 country for coverage of measles vaccines, as rates lag behind Europe, with experts warning declining health budgets and the spread of misinformation are putting children at risk.

Now, health officials in the UK have sounded the alarm over our waning vaccine coverage after a child with measles died in Liverpool.

On Monday, health secretary Wes Streeting said that the child’s death shows the nation needs to “redouble its efforts” to vaccinate more children and said improvements promised in the NHS’s 10-year plan, such as giving parents access to digital health records, could help.

One expert told The Independent a multitude of issues have impacted the UK’s measles vaccination rates, including declining public health budgets, lower access to GP services, and the increased circulation of misinformation on social media.

Speaking with The Independent, Adam Finn, Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Bristol, and a member of the government’s Joint Vaccinations and Immunisations Committee, explained there were several factors, including the fact that there has been a general decline in immunisation over the past 15 years, which had initially been ignored.

He said: “The public health authority officials favour the idea that it’s because there’s been a waning of resource in the health service to deliver the vaccine programme, so as primary care in particular has become more stretched the capacity to chase people up and go after the people that are otherwise not getting their act together has disappeared and that’s resulted in the vulnerable edge getting worse and worse.”

“The competing hypothesis, which is quite convenient for the politicians, is that it's mad internet misinformation, and in a sense, people are somehow to blame for believing it and that it’s not really a governmental problem, it's myth and legend, as it were.”

“My view is that those two things are not mutually exclusive.”

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Source: The Independent, 15 July 2025