Parents are heeding the authorities’ advice and rushing to health centres to get children vaccinated against measles.
Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci told Times of Malta on Friday that following her letter to doctors on Wednesday, alerting them to outbreaks across Europe and urging more caution to avoid a similar situation locally, parents were calling at the immunisation centre in Floriana asking for their children to get the anti-measles jab.
Dr Gauci said staff at the centre had reported a sudden spike in requests for the vaccine.
Times of Malta reported on Friday many refused to have their children vaccinated, a decision described by an experienced consultant paediatrician as “irresponsible and illogical”.
Dr Gauci said the news that there was risk of an outbreak seemed to have jolted quite a few parents into reconsidering their decision not to vaccinate.
Others called health centres to enquire whether their children were at risk if they had not yet received the second dose.
“We had various concerned parents calling to ask if their young ones were at risk because they had only been given the first dose at 13 months,” Dr Gauci said, adding that, after the first…
