Measles Outbreak: Mass Vaccination Underway

By Isabel Webster, Correspondent

Mass vaccination has begun in schools in Swansea on a scale never seen before in South Wales as health officials try to put an end to the measles outbreak.

Some 5,000 children have been identified as at risk in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot and five schools in the area are offering immunisations over the next three days to try and halve that figure.

Rebecca Higgins, 14, was one of 20 students at Bishop Gore school to contract the virus and was one of the first to get the MMR jab today.

She said: "I've never been so ill in my life. I couldn't move or eat, I couldn't stand light and it was just horrendous. So, I wanted to get the jab ASAP - I never want to go through that again."

Sara Hayes, the Director of Public Health for Abertawe Bro Morganwg University Health Board said she's never known a measles epidemic like it in her career.

She said: "I don't think it's reached the peak yet - it still seems to be growing.

"I'm very concerned about that. We will see clusters of cases ongoing - it's a waiting game really - we just hope we're ahead of that with our vaccination programme."

Public Health Wales has recorded a 10% rise in cases of the virus since last week bringing the total number affected since the start of the outbreak in November to 765.

Of those, 77 have had to receive some form of hospital treatment.

The latest figures, which will be updated on Thursday, are expected to show another increase.

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