My Department's immunisation policy is based on the advice of the National Immunisation Committee of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. A supply of egg free MMR vaccine is available free of charge from health boards for administration to those with an allergy to egg. The advice of the national immunisation committee with regard to MMR vaccine is that allergy to egg is only a contraindication if the child has had an anaphylactic reaction following food containing egg. The MMR vaccine can be administered to children with non-anaphylactic allergy to eggs, even to those with severe hypersensitivity. I am advised by the Irish Medicines Board, the regulatory body for human medicines in Ireland, that there is no peanut content in MMR vaccine.
MMR vaccine is available free of charge from family doctors under the primary childhood immunisation programme and there is no provision for children to receive separate measles, mumps or rubella vaccinations under this scheme. On the basis of currently available information there is no evidence that giving each of the component vaccines separately has any greater benefit than the combined vaccines. Splitting the MMR vaccine into separate components would involve extra injections for children and would cause both children and the people with whom they come in contact to be exposed to these potentially serious diseases for a much longer period of time.
The information currently available to my Department is that separate measles or mumps vaccines are not available in this country. The international consensus, including the World Health Organisation, is that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective and this is supported by a number of well validated studies on this issue.
I would like to take this opportunity to urge parents to have their children immunised with the MMR vaccine in accordance with current recommendations. This will ensure that individual children and the population generally have maximum protection against the diseases concerned. General practitioners are aware of the contraindications to the recommended childhood immunisations and parents should discuss any concerns they may have with their general practitioners before making a decision about their child's immunisation.
