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Vaccination and Immunisation
Proposed Surveillance of Pertussis Vaccines
I was informed in April by the Public Health Laboratory Service that the survey of
pertussis vaccines, in which the Department had taken part, had shown that the preparations
in use in recent years conferred an unsatisfactory degree of protection and that the M.R.C.
Committee on the Development of Vaccines and Immunological Procedures had recommended
that, in future, the efficacy of pertussis vaccines should be kept under surveillance. It
was proposed that this should continue along the lines of the P.H.L.S. Survey involving
the observations of attack rate in vaccinated children exposed to a notified case of
pertussis in the home, and I agreed to participate.
Measles Vaccine
The Department of Health and Social Security notified me in March that one manufacturer
had advised immediate suspension of the use of their attenuated measles vaccine
because 3 children, all in the second year of life, had been reported as suffering from a
condition clinically diagnosed as encephalitis, the onset of which had occurred about a
week after vaccination. Vaccine continued to be made available by other manufacturers
and, as the demand for vaccine fell short of what had been expected, no distribution difficulties
were experienced by the Department.
Statistical tables of the immunisation of persons under the age of 16 are given below:-