Can a child get measles even if theyve had MMR injection?
MMR vaccine effectiveness against measles over 5 years is around 90%. In a situation where nearly all children are vaccinated, the likelihood of someone who is infected with measles passing it on becomes so low that it is unlikely that a single person will catch the disease from them. The virus simply can’t spread even if it is introduced from abroad, and this is the point at which a country is considered free from measles. The US is currently in this happy status with measles. The UK saw a halt in measles cases during the mid-90s as a result of MMR. However, due to the MMR scare, vaccination rates have fallen to around 80% in London – the virus can much more easily spread among those who are unvaccinated, and those who were vaccinated but didn’t undergo seroconversion (i.e. they didn’t start producing antibodies against measles) are also at an increased risk. So at the moment, the chances of a vaccinated child contracting measles are higher than if there was near-universal vaccination
