Following the child’s death, the hospital warned parents that a fall in uptake of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine had been behind a spike in cases in the region.
The council health committee heard Worcestershire has a high uptake of vaccines including MMR and flu jabs, and that while trust in vaccination remains high among parents, there had been a “slow and steady” decline in pre-school vaccination uptake rates over the past 10 years.
Dr McNally warned that children in the county were at “real risk” if they had not received the MMR vaccination.
She said: “It is difficult. [Online groups] have advantages over us – they’re anonymous often, they can use threats where we keep things at a professional level.
“But we don’t give up on it and we keep going because every child that is vaccinated, every person that has their flu jab this winter, is a person less at risk of really serious illness.
“That’s enough motivation for me and all my colleagues to keep battling that.”
