World Immunisation Week

Debate between Chris Elmore and Dan Carden

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden]

The Secretary of State is nodding, and I appreciate that.

This means many of the world’s poorest children are in fact living in middle-income countries with a GDP that makes them ineligible for either official development assistance or Gavi support. I hope the Secretary of State will listen to the all-party group on vaccines for all, which has called for Gavi to bring about new criteria beyond a country’s GDP.

Let me now turn to another major threat to universal immunisation coverage. It is a threat that we face both here in the UK and right across the world: vaccine hesitancy, a phenomenon that the World Health Organisation has not only warned is on the rise but has now identified as one of the top 10 major threats to global health for 2019. This year’s theme of “Protected together: vaccines work!” also points to the difficulties in this area.

Since 2014, the number of countries reporting hesitancy has steadily increased, and in 2017 only 14 countries out of 194 reported no vaccine hesitancy. In England, dangerous false stories about immunisations are routinely spread on social media. The likes of YouTube and Facebook are failing to clamp down properly on those who peddle these lies. We must take tougher action and tell the truth about immunisations because the increasing refusal of vaccines has been described by the head of NHS England as a “growing public health timebomb.”

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s recently published online harms consultation needs to include the beefing up of this, and that Facebook and others must be held responsible if they allow such anti-immunisation scare stories to be included on their platforms, because, as we are seeing in America, this is risking and costing lives?

[Dan Carden]

I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly. We must take tougher action to tell the truth about immunisations, and we need to act fast with global partners if we are to avert the destructive potential of this. According to UNICEF, half a million British children are not vaccinated against measles, and in 2018 there were 966 cases of measles across the country, more than double the number in 2017. This is a worrying and sharp rise that requires our attention.

That is why my colleagues in Labour’s health team have committed to a vaccination action plan that includes getting tough with the big social media companies that are providing a platform that is fuelling a new public health crisis. Labour wants to see the £800 million of public health cuts reversed, more health visitors recruited to provide proper health advice backed by science to parents and GPs given the investment they need to drive up vaccination rates.