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Dept of Health

Answer

Mr. Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of (a) measles, (b) mumps, (c) rubella, (d) diphtheria, (e) tetanus, (f) whooping cough and (g) polio there were in each of the last 10 years. [124211] Yvette Cooper: [holding answer 5 June 2000]: The data in the table, which is for England and Wales, have been provided by the Public Health Laboratory Service, Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre. For measles, mumps and rubella, data are collected as both notifications of disease and as laboratory-confirmed cases. Laboratory-confirmed cases give a more reliable guide to the true incidence of a disease, and in recent years a low proportion of suspected cases of measles, mumps and rubella have been confirmed as true cases. Data prior to 1995 on how many notifications of measles, mumps and rubella were tested and confirmed are incomplete and are incomparable with that for 1995 onwards from which date more accessible salivary antibody testing was introduced. Prior to 1995 confirmation required a blood test; these data are not collated but it was likely to be few. The number of cases of pertussis (whooping cough) is based on notifications; only hospitalised cases are tested and the test is only positive in severe disease and very early in infection. The data for diphtheria are for laboratory-confirmed toxigenic diphtheria isolates. The figures for tetanus and polio are for cases ascertained by all methods. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year Measles notified Measles tested Measles Mumps notified Mumps tested Mumps confirmed confirmed 1989 26,222 n/a 100 20,713 n/a 265 1990 13,302 n/a 78 4,277 n/a 94 1991 9,680 n/a 49 2,922 n/a 52 1992 10,268 n/a 106 2,412 n/a 49 1993 9,611 n/a 96 2,153 n/a 34 1994 16,374 n/a {1}406 2,494 n/a {1}48 1995 7,445 4,622 {1}60 1,933 962 {1}68 1996 5,613 3,320 {1}115 1,747 966 {1}94 1997 3,962 2,596 {1}199 1,914 1,102 {1}181 1998 3,728 2,309 {1}57 1,587 1,000 {1}119 1999 2,438 1,412 {1}101 1,691 1,131 {1}335 Year Rubella Rubella Rubella Diphtheria Tetanus Whooping Poliomyelitis notified tested confirmed cough 1989 24,570 n/a 760 6 10 11,646 2 1990 11,491 n/a 705 4 11 15,286 4 1991 7,174 n/a 249 1 11 5,201 2 1992 6,212 n/a 197 3 10 2,309 5 1993 9,724 n/a 1,489 5 11 4,091 4 1994 6,326 n/a 309 4 3 3,964 2 1995 6,196 2,847 971 1 6 1,869 2 1996 9,081 4,217 2,776 3 6 2,387 1 1997 3,260 2,032 99 5 6 2,989 2 1998 3,208 2,207 {1}118 3 9 1,577 1 1999 1,954 1,285 {1}181 0 3 1,139 0 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. {1} Includes cases confirmed by salivary antibody testing in addition to those confirmed by blood testing Note: The 1999 data are provisional

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

124211; 353 c34-6W;353 c34-5W

Session

1999-00

Subjects

Diseases Rubella Whooping cough Tetanus Polio Measles Mumps Diphtheria

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk