Babies will be born deaf and blind if teenagers don't get MMR to prevent rubella timebomb, warns leading scientist



Professor Colin Blakemore has urged teenagers to get vaccinated to prevent wave of mumps and rubella

Said their babies could be born deaf, blind, with heart problems as well as other congenital abnormalities

Last year the number of rubella cases in England were at their highest in ten years



Babies will be born deaf and blind unless they are given the MMR jab, a leading expert has warned.

Professor Colin Blakemore said the measles epidemic that has centred in South Wales is just one part of a much wider problem that could lead to disabling and even life-threatening outbreaks of mumps and rubella.

The reluctance to immunise babies came about in 1998 after a scientific paper was published by Andrew Wakefield in The Lancet.



It claimed that children who had the combined vaccine were at a greater risk of developing autism and colitis.

Unvaccinated teenagers are putting their future children at risk of catching mumps and rubella which could leave them blind, deaf and with heart problems

Rates of immunisation plummeted after the article and although numbers have risen steadily since the study was discredited, more than 300,000 British children aged between 10 and 16 remain unvaccinated.

A further 300,000 have only had one of the recommended two doses of the vaccine.

Professor Blakemore, the former chief executive of the Medical Research Council, wrote in The Times that children who missed out on the jab are now teenagers and that many will soon become pregnant.

He explained that mumps can render young men infertile and added that women infected with rubella have a 20 per cent chance of abortion.

A large number of babies who survive will suffer with permanent deafness, blindness and heart problems associated with rubella syndrome.

Pregnant women with rubella (pictured) have a 20 per cent chance of abortion

'We might think that the measles epidemic is the last gasp of Mr Wakefield. But I fear he still has more damage to wreak,' Professor Blakemore said.

He added that people were in danger of forgetting the 'miraculous' powers of vaccines because immunising causes us to forget quite how dangerous infections disease are.

Rubella numbers have risen in recent years. Last year there were 65 cases in England alone - the highest number for over a decade.



Jof McGill of deaf blind charity Sense added that people who were born deaf and blind in the 1950s and 1960s still require long-term care.



He said: 'A baby born affected by rubella is said to have congenital rubella syndrome. Many will have hearing loss, cataracts, other eye conditions, heart problems requiring significant hospital treatment and ongoing health concerns that affect a person throughout their lives.



'You can't wait for an outbreak and then react. The only want to to protect women is to stop the disease [with universal immunisation].'

Dr Ralph Holme, Action on Hearing Loss Head of Biomedical Research, added that congenital rubella syndrome could have social consequences too: ‘It is really important that people take up the MMR vaccine, which offers protection against rubella.