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Children's health

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Original poster

MMR - has anyone been told that their child will have the booster 3 months after the first jab?

21 replies

bran · 28/04/2009 19:13

I took DD for her MMR today and the nurse said that I would be sent a letter inviting her for a booster in about 3 months because there is an outbreak of measles around in our area. It seems a bit odd to me, has anyone else had this? My friend who lives nearby (so also in the outbreak zone) had her DD vaccinated about 9 months ago and hasn't heard anything at all about early boosters.

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

EldonAve · 28/04/2009 19:15

Both mine were offered the booster 3 mths after the first jab - we are in SW London

ILoveOurNanny · 28/04/2009 19:18

Yes, they do this where we live now. When dd was little, it was done as a pre-school booster.

ohdearwhatamess · 28/04/2009 19:28

Not here (Herts). Ds2 (14mo) has just had his and the nurse said she'd see him back for the booster just before he started school.

Wheelybug · 28/04/2009 19:30

yexs here too in SW London

Flightattendant25 · 28/04/2009 19:30

I don't get this, I keep hearing it - if the first one doesn't protect them, what is the point? And then they are offering another one at 4yo?

I'm not sure I would want to bother if it's not effective.

Original poster

bran · 28/04/2009 22:33

So it's not that uncommon then, thanks everyone.

FA25, I think the vaccine doesn't "take" for a certain percentage, but it's just chance and doesn't mean that it won't work on the second try. The booster isn't actually a booster, it's the same vaccine again.

OP posts:

saintlydamemrsturnip · 28/04/2009 22:36

How old is she bran? They used to give the MMR at 15 months, but moved it to 13 months. It is known to be slightly less effective at 13 months. This might explain the offer of a 15 month one as well.

I think I would take the opportunity to ask for an antibody titre tbh. No point in vaccinating again if your child has immunity.

Booboobedoo · 28/04/2009 22:38

Happened with us too (SE London). If there's a high incicidence of measles in youe area or your child is considered to be high rick, they do it.

Original poster

bran · 28/04/2009 22:41

She's 15 months saintly. It was delayed because she had an ear infection, then her next appointment was during handover (we're adopting her) so it was decided to wait until she had moved to us and had time to settle in before giving her the jab. I didn't know you could ask for an antibody check, I assumed it was much more expensive and time consuming to check whether the original one was effective than to just give a second one.

We do have a reasonably bad outbreak here in East London apparently, a few months ago some nurseries had to close for a while to prevent the spread of measles.

OP posts:

saintlydamemrsturnip · 28/04/2009 22:44

Well they might huff and puff but I think you would be entitled to ask for an antibody check before having 2 vaccinations in a short space of time. I know it's harder to stray from the party line when you adopt (DS1 has to have SS assessments because he's disabled and I'm always pleased it's him that gets asked the vaccination questions rather than ds2 or ds3 ) but I think in these circumstances it would be entirely reasonable. Yes it is much cheaper just to give a second MMR, but I'm not a fan of unnecessary vaccinations (and in private many HCP's aren't either).

ladylush · 04/05/2009 18:49

Can you get an antibody test on the NHS? Ds is due a measles booster (single) but I don't want him to have it unless necessary. I'm guessing they won't do it unless I intend on giving him the MMR though.

verylapsedrunner · 04/05/2009 21:06

For what it's worth this is completely standard in Austria

TheLadyEvenstar · 04/05/2009 21:18

I Live in SE London and have not heard of any outbreaks yet.....

HaventAClue · 05/05/2009 12:10

This is happening in our area of SE London - I took DD for her 12 month vaccinations and was told they'd give her the MMR instead as they were doing MMR at 12 months and others at 13 months - i.e. had swapped the order round. Was then told she'd have booster at 15 months! I've heard MMR less effective before 15 months anyway, and insisted on doing jabs in order they're in red book. DD now 15 months will do MMR but not sure about booster so soon after don't know anyone who's done this.

Musukebba · 06/05/2009 23:42

No-one is automatically "entitled" to get a measles antibody test done "on the NHS". There may be good reasons for one being agreed; such as laboratory-diagnosed immunosuppression or a pre-transplant case.

For your information, the antibody tests are only validated for diagnosis of disease and not assessment of immunity.

ladylush · 07/05/2009 07:48

That's interesting Mus - do you work in medicine?

snickersnack · 07/05/2009 20:31

I looked into a measles antibody test for ds, as he had measles before he had his MMR, and there was some uncertainty over whether it would give him immunity. My GP said they couldn't (or wouldn't, I don't know which) do the test. A couple of the private clinics which offer single jabs in London said they would do it, but then got nervous about taking blood from such a small child . In the end, and after a lot of research, I concluded that I would give him the MMR anyway as a) don't have any anti-MMR worries, b) didn't want him to catch measles again and c) even if he was immune, couldn't see the point of giving him 2 separate jabs for mumps and rubella when we could get it all done in one.

Musukebba · 08/05/2009 22:57

@snickersnack: I think that's very sensible approach and my professional opinion would also be that it is difficult to justify taking blood from small healthy children for those purposes.

If your child definitely had natural measles then he's immune for life - subsequent MMR or not - and I hope he recovered well. Giving MMR after natural measles is safe and would still be expected give him immunity to rubella and mumps (the latter as long as he gets the second pre-school dose too).

@ladylush: I'm a clinical virologist in the NHS. My general comment was in relation to immunocompromised children who cannot receive live vaccines, and thus a forced judgement has to be made on their likely protection from measles; given the current lack of local population herd immunity.

ladylush · 09/05/2009 09:49

Mus - thanks It was a genuine enquiry by the way - rather than a do you know what you're talking about kind of way

snickersnack · 09/05/2009 14:09

Musekabba, I wish I'd found you 8 months ago! I got a fairly robust response when I initially posted about ds's measles on MN - so was not keen to reignite the debate with an "MMR or not MMR" debate.

It was definitely measles - confirmed by a mouth swab and the HPA phoned me with the results - but I couldn't find anyone in the NHS who could tell me a) whether having measles at a young age conferred immunity and b) whether giving him the MMR would be a problem from an immune response point of view. He was absolutely fine post-MMR so the right call. I will confess to having been a bit lax about following up on his booster, though.

Musukebba · 09/05/2009 15:16

@ladylush - no problem I took it that way too! Keep forgetting to use the smileys...

@snickersnack - ah yes I haven't been on MN very long. I'm very glad to hear your DS got better from measles, and yes the HPA confirmation from a mouth swab test would be conclusive.

Sorry that you couldn't find anyone in the NHS to confirm that natural measles confers good immunity, even at a young age. Certainly the MMR (or single measles vaccine) doesn't work very well in infants, but that's because of maternal immunity still being present and interfering with it. However natural measles can overcome the same maternal immunity and establish an infection.

Re the immune response to MMR post-measles: having just sorted out a natural measles infection your DS's immune system would have no problem dealing with the weedy measles part of the MMR, and probably didn't even notice it . The same is true for mumps and rubella: after a natural infection with one or more of these there is no problem giving MMR to vaccinate against whichever infection has not yet been acquired.

Anyway I'm glad to hear everything worked out well.

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