Parents urged: 'Give kids jab'

Doncaster Primary Care Trust reported 22 cases of the highly infectious illness in the Thorne area during the school holidays.

It followed reports of the disease in Rotherham, Barnsley and Sheffield.

Doctors said they believed the school holidays had limited the spread of the illness in Doncaster, but remain concerned and are monitoring the situation through GPs.

Trust spokesman Ian Carpenter said today: "As ever, the advice to parents whose children are returning to or starting school today is to make sure their children are immunised. It is never too late for them to have the MMR jab.

"Obviously if you have children who have not been immunised, they run the risk of catching the disease from other children if they have the bug to pass on.

"We live in an increasingly mobile society and we need to have a 95 per cent immunisation rate to have herd immunity and keep the protection rate up. Measles is a very nasty disease which can have long term consequences.

"Immunisation is particularly important now after there has been an outbreak."

Complications from measles can include severe coughs and breathing difficulties, ear and eye infections and pneumonia. In rare cases, there can also be serious complications affecting the brain and nervous system.

Deaths from measles in the UK are very rare but, worldwide, an estimated one million children die every year as a result of catching measles, mostly in developing countries with poor vaccination programmes.

Doctors say measles is very rare in the UK because the MMR vaccination protects against it. But those who have not had an MMR jab, or who have only had one dose, can remain vulnerable.

Symptoms usually develop about 10 days after being in contact with an infectious person and last for up to 14 days from the first signs.

Early warning signs, which can last two to four days, can include fever, conjunctivitis, sore and red eyes, spots inside the mouth and a cough and runny nose. Flat red or brown blotches appears around the fourth day.