BOLTON continues to top the table for immunisation, despite claims linking vaccination with serious medical conditions.

The latest figures released by Wigan and Bolton Health Authority reveals that more than 99 per cent of children in Bolton are protected with the full three doses of diphtheria, tetanus, polio and HIB vaccines.

This is by far the most comprehensive vaccination coverage in the whole of the North West.

Similarly, 98 per cent of youngsters are covered for pertussis and 93 per cent for MMR at the age of 24 months and Bolton Community Healthcare Trust currently ranks first among all the North West NHS trusts for immunisation.

This is despite national publicity claiming a link between the MMR vaccine with the incidence of Chron's Disease and autism among children.

Last year, a review by the Public Health Laboratory Service showed take-up rates for the MMR vaccine at 16 months had fallen. Between 1997/98, the take up rate nationally dropped by 4.3 per cent.

The Laboratory Service puts the fall down to a decrease in public confidence in the combined vaccine.

Dr Robert Aston, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control in Bolton and a leading authority on immunisation, believes family doctors and nurses have a duty to reassure parents about vaccination.

Dr Aston said: "To have achieved such high immunisation coverage by the age of 12 months is an especially pleasing aspect. Children under the age of one are at more risk of serious complications from vaccine preventable diseases."

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