Fewer children getting vaccinated for meningitis and whooping cough

Leaving children at risk of developing the diseases.

The number of school children who received the meningitis vaccine and the vaccine against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough has fallen in the last year. The uptake for both the Tdap and MenC vaccines dropped by three percent among 11 to 14-year-olds in the academic year of 2016-2017. In both cases, the lowest uptake was in parts of Dublin North, Dublin West and Dublin South. The Tdap vaccination was introduced in September 2011 and is offered to students in first year of secondary school. Similarly, the MenC vaccine has been offered since September 2014 to children aged between 12 and 13 years old. The fall in the number of children getting the vaccines is being linked the declining number of people suffering from the targeted diseases, according to some experts. “As our rates of these diseases have gone down, people don’t perceive them as important enough anymore to keep up with the vaccines,” Chair of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, Professor Karina Butler says of the findings. “It might not be convenient or they might miss out on the day and then they don’t make the effort to catch up.” Many are also saying that the public’s weakening confidence in vaccines has also played a part in the number of those choosing not to be vaccinated.