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Dept of Health

Answer

Mrs. Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Health for what medical reasons single antigen measles and mumps vaccines are not licensed in the United Kingdom. [145131] Yvette Cooper: The policy for protecting children from measles, mumps and rubella is a two dose schedule of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. This is based on the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and the assessment of the safety of the vaccine by the Committee for the Safety of Medicines. This policy has been endorsed on 12 January 2001 by the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Nursing and the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association. Separate doses of single antigen vaccines given at intervals leave children vulnerable to the risk of potentially serious disease. The JCVI advises that there are no benefits from giving the single antigen vaccines compared with the combined vaccine and that a schedule of separate vaccines is less safe than the combined vaccine. The MCA advises that the single antigen vaccines for measles and mumps currently being imported are unlicensed. Further to my replies to my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Ms Osborne) on 19 June 2000, Official Report, column 49W and the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) on 24 November 2000, Official Report, column 354W, I have now been informed by the Medicines Control Agency that there are extant licenses for measles and mumps vaccines. However there are no vaccines available for use in the United Kingdom that meet the specifications of those licenses and the vaccines that are in use are not licensed. All single antigen measles and mumps vaccines in the UK are not licensed for use in the UK.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

361 c429-30W;361 c430-1W; 145131

Session

2000-01

Subjects

Children Rubella Vaccination MMR vaccine Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation Measles Mumps

Link

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