Parents in Wales urged to give children MMR vaccine Public Health Wales warned this week that measles was spreading at an alarming rate. Parents are being urged to use the Easter school break to arrange potentially lifesaving measles protection for their children. A measles epidemic centred on Swansea has underlined the need for protection. There is increasing concern that pleas for thousands of unvaccinated children to be given the MMR jab are not being acted on. Health experts in Wales warn that take-up of the jab is far too slow, putting lives at risk at the height of an epidemic. Public Health Wales (PHW) warned this week that measles was spreading at an alarming rate. Now a renewed call is being made for parents to use the Easter break to ensure their children return to school with full protection. Robert Francis-Davies, a Swansea councillor and grandfather of five children, said: "It is no exaggeration to say that the MMR jab is literally a lifesaver." The Labour councillor for the Morriston area added: "There is no excuse for failing to get your children protected, and infected children can cause grave problems for others, don't forget. There is a host of vulnerable people who can be infected, from pregnant women to babies, toddlers, leukaemia suffers - it's frightening. I am a grandfather of five children under the age of 10 and I have encouraged all my children to ensure their children have the MMR jab. The worst thing you can do for your child in the middle of a measles epidemic is leave him or her unprotected. Dr Marion Lyons, PHW director of health protection, has repeatedly warned that measles can leave unprotected children brain-damaged or dead. The latest warning comes as the number of cases has more than doubled to 432 in the last three weeks, 51 serious enough to be admitted to hospital. Experts fear the contagion could rival an outbreak in Dublin more than a decade ago when three people died. "Worryingly there are still tens of thousands of susceptible children across Wales, yet our weekly monitoring of vaccination rates shows only a slight increase in numbers receiving MMR jabs," Lyons said. If the numbers of parents bringing their children for MMR jabs does not dramatically increase, measles will continue to spread and quickly reach levels last seen in the outbreak in Dublin in 1999/2000. In that outbreak over 1,200 children were infected and three died. She added: "The risk to unvaccinated children in Wales is increasing as the disease spreads. You only need one or two people who haven't had the vaccination in a community to put at risk babies, toddlers and anyone else who is vulnerable, such as children with leukaemia who cannot have the vaccination and pregnant women who haven't been vaccinated.