Dr Hilary says: A measles epidemic could occur this winter due to a drop in children being immunised with the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, it has been claimed.
Experts from the Health Protection Agency, the Government's public health watchdog, predict that parts of Britain are at risk of an iminent measles epidemic on a scale not seen for more than 30 years.
MMR jab uptake decline
Nearly a decade ago 92% of under-twos had the MMR jab - but since the controversial research which linked it with autism was made public that number has dropped to just 80%.
In some areas it's as low as 60% and outbreaks of measles have already been seen.
Latest MMR research
The latest large-scale study, published in The Lancet medical journal, concluded that there was no evidence to support a link between the combined vaccine and autism in children.
But confidence in the jab remains low - well below the 95% recommended by the World Health Organisation - despite the efforts of health officials to reassure the public.
HPA's concerns
Reporting the HPA?s concerns, Pulse, the medical publication, said that poor immunity meant an average of 15% of children and adults would be admitted to hospital if infected by measles.
As well as having a rash, people with measles can suffer serious complications such as meningitis and pneumonia. It is more common for eyes and ears to develop a secondary infection needing antibiotics.
Infectious disease experts believe that London alone has 350,000 susceptible youngsters under-16 and could face an epidemic of many thousands of cases.
The HPA is working with public health officials in London to formulate an emergency plan to stop measles spreading. Some parts of London have already seen outbreaks of the infection.
Before vaccination started in the late 1960s, Britain had about 800,000 cases and 100 deaths a year from measles.
Vaccination rates rose from about 50% in 1968 to 76% in 1988. These had led to a steady decline in measles cases. The introduction of MMR in 1988 caused a further increase in the vaccination rate. This wiped out measles as an endemic disease. But people continued to bring the virus into Britain from abroad, causing small outbreaks.
There were 71 measles cases in 2001 and 308 in 2002. The largest outbreak affected about 100 people.
The Current situation with measles in the UK
So far this year, numbers of measles cases are still at relatively low levels; there were 150 confirmed cases in the first half of 2004 compared with 296 cases in the same period in 2003. It is also encouraging to see that uptake of the MMR vaccine is now about 80% at two years of age.
However, due to the drop in MMR coverage after 1998, there is a large and growing group of children who haven?t been vaccinated, and who are therefore at risk of catching measles.
Dr Hilary says:
"It's inevitable that they'll be an epedemic because you've got an ever enlarging pool of non-vaccinated children. I'd say to anybody that MMR is safe - there's no evidence that it's not.
"The only people who stand to suffer are the children. This could be as bad as the whooping cough epidemic in the seventies when children died."
Still don't know why its worse in winter, maybe something to do with being indoors more - more likely to transfer droplets that way - as it attacks throat glands first.