The spread of “misinformation” is fuelling a decline in people getting vaccinated across Southwark

A recent report showed a reduction in vaccination uptake across the borough, prompting a crackdown by the council.  

Anti-vaccine groups “fed by misinformation” was cited as one of the reasons for the decline.  

To increase uptake, Southwark is working on introducing self consent in teenagers, which means they would not need their parents’ consent to be vaccinated.  

The council published a local strategic action plan this year in a bid to increase immunisations by 5 per cent between 2019 and 2021.  

According to council documents: “Immunisations are the safest and most cost-effective way of protecting individuals and communities from vaccine-preventable diseases.  

“They prevent disease at the individual level and also can achieve a level of population coverage that confers herd immunity; a form of indirect protection that occurs when a large percentage of the population has become immune to an infection.   

“Globally, immunisation programmes are considered one of the greatest public health interventions in terms of measurable impact on population morbidity and mortality.  

“Despite this, we continue to see regular outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases locally, nationally and internationally.  

“Recent work undertaken in Southwark has identified that local vaccination coverage for several vaccination programmes has declined and some have now fallen below both locally and nationally agreed targets.” 

The council is focusing on five priority areas to increase vaccinations, including reducing inequalities in uptake, community uptake and promotion, data sharing, improving service delivery and training.  

A report, which will be discussed by the health and wellbeing board on Monday, included a history of the benifits of vaccinations in the country.

It stated that in England in the 1950s there were nearly 120,000 cases of Whooping Cough annually, but by 2011 this had reduced to just 1,500.  

There were more than 60,000 cases and 3,800 deaths from Diphtheria in the 1940s but by 2017, this had reduced to five reported cases annually. 

“The HPV vaccine introduced 10 years ago has been shown to reduce HPV infection by 86 per cent and consequently a potential risk of cervical cancer by 70 per cent. 

“Despite this, we continue to see regular outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases locally, nationally and internationally,” according to the report.  

The reasons for the decline in vaccine uptake in Southwark were put down to anti-vaccination groups “fed by misinformation” and societal inequalities that have led to underserved groups “less able or willing to access immunisations due to a variety of barriers such as fear, distrust, language , poor health literacy, marginalisation or poor access to health services”.  

Another barrier was the high number of people not registered with a GP.  

Pre-school children are mostly vaccinated at the GP, except for against Tuberculosis and Hepatitis B for babies born to Hepatitis B positive mothers, which are delivered in the maternity ward.  

To help reach its five per cent target, the council will promote the MMR vaccine to all pre-school children, improve the process for hepatitis B in high risk babies, and increase uptake of the flu vaccine in two and three year olds.  

Vaccines given in schools include HPV, Meningitis, the Td/IPV (tetanus, diphtheria and polio) booster as well as the flu jab.  

In Southwark, school-aged children are vaccinated by HRCH Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare and uptake is generally similar to or better than the rest of London but HPV uptake has recently decreased. 

The council is working to improve the uptake of HPV in girls and introducing self-consent, introducing HPV in boys, and improving flu uptake in primary school children with use of e-consent – meaning parents can fill out a form online.  

The usual vaccinations offered to adults are PPV, shingles and whooping cough for pregnant woman while the flu jab is offered to peoople over 65 and those at risk.  

The council is working to increase the invites to people to get vaccinated for shingles, as it does with smear tests for women for example, and increasing flu jab uptake.