PARENTS in Wiltshire are being urged to ensure their children are vaccinated against measles amid fears of an outbreak of the potentially fatal disease following a fall in the uptake of the controversial MMR jabs.

The Department of Health is making extra vaccine and more funds available to help local health trusts put in place a campaign to vaccinate every child up to the age of 18 against measles.

The number of cases of measles is rising following a decade of relatively low vaccine uptake following now discredited claims it could be linked to autism in children.

In Wiltshire 89 per cent of youngsters have been vaccinated by their second birthday and 81 per cent have had both the first jab and the booster, normally given just before youngsters start school.

But the uptake needed to achieve "herd" immunity is 95 per cent.

Nationwide there were 1,726 confirmed cases of measles in 2006 and 2007, more than was recorded over a whole decade previously, with 12 cases in Wiltshire.

The previous success of the MMR vaccination programme reduced the number of measles cases to very low levels for a number of years.

Between 1992 and 2006 there were no deaths from acute measles in England. However there was one death in 2006 and another in 2008.

Dr Jo Peden, public health speciality registrar at Wiltshire Primary Care Trust said: "As immunisation rates have fallen there is now a real chance there may be a measles outbreak. Measles is a serious disease and in some cases can be fatal - I would urge all parents who have not had their children immunised with MMR to take advantage of this campaign and take their child to the GP for their vaccination."