SADLY, this month, the death of a person due to a measles infection occurred in Ireland.

This is a huge tragedy for any family to cope with, but harder still when the spotlight is on their recent movements given the highly contagious nature of the disease.

If an unvaccinated person comes into contact with the measles, they are highly likely to become infected with the virus where the side effects are serious and can be fatal.

The HSE recognise that we need to act fast and have accelerated their measles health campaign from vaccinations in the young, to a widespread vaccination catch-up programme to include anyone in doubt as to their vaccination status. I am a big supporter of the MMR vaccination campaign.

It is encouraging to see the government moving quickly to try and get back to our pre-Covid levels of herd immunity status. We have a real opportunity to boost our population’s vaccination rate to even higher than our pre- pandemic levels of 95%.

Thanks to the latest announcements, this catch-up programme is not just about children who may have missed their first or booster MMR vaccines during Covid. We now have a unique chance to capture those adults who did not receive one or both vaccinations when they were young due to vaccination hesitancy and misinformation.

These adults have lived through a pandemic, and they are motivated to get vaccinated for Measles now, but this can’t all fall at the GPs doorstep. Pharmacists want to help.

We have shown how valuable a role the community pharmacist can play in giving the Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic, and again more recently with the flu vaccinations that were given to large groups in schools and within their communities.

We all know that GPs are extremely stretched within their communities, seeing their sick patients and managing chronic disease, never mind checking vaccination........

© Evening Echo