CHILDREN are at risk if there is an outbreak of measles in the area, MP Dr Sarah Wollaston has warned.

Dr Wollaston is urging parents to immunise their children against measles because of low levels of MMR protection.

She says Totnes is at 'even greater' risk than in South Wales where a measles epidemic is sweeping communities because over 10 per cent of children were not vaccinated.

'But here in Totnes that figure is 30 per cent,' she said.

'I would urge anyone who is unsure whether they or their children are fully protected to contact their surgery.'

On her blog, the Conservative MP said there needs to be a 'clear message' that vaccinating a child also protects the 'most vulnerable children of your neighbours and friends'.

In Swansea, nearly 700 people have been infected and at least 6,000 children remain unvaccinated in the southwest Wales county.

Dr Wollaston wrote: '(Measles) is far more than "just a childhood illness". In Dublin three children died as a result of this vaccine-preventable illness between 1999 and 2000 and many more required intensive care.

'Wales was vulnerable to the current outbreak because more than ten per cent of children were unvaccinated and this allowed the virus to spread through schools and communities.

'In Totnes the risk of a measles epidemic should the virus arrive from Wales is even greater as 30 per cent of five-year-olds have not received both doses of MMR.

'Last year 93.9 per cent of five-year-olds were fully protected against measles in Brixham yet only 70.4 per cent just a few miles up the road in Totnes.

'In other words, the chances of a virus circulating in Totnes are far greater than in Brixham, but unvaccinated children and adults are at risk in both.'

She suggests for the most part, parents in Totnes are rejecting the three-in-one MMR – measles, mumps and rubella – jab because of the work of Dr Andrew Wakefield, who in the late 1990s produced a since-discredited paper suggesting MMR was linked to an increased risk of autism.

Dr Wollaston said the effect of the report might be 'an unwarranted fear that vaccination is harmful or the belief that 'natural' methods like homeopathy can boost a child's immunity and thereby offer a safe alternative to protect against this virus'. According to figures from the NHS information centre, 14.9 per cent of children up to five years old were yet to have both MMR jabs in Torbay, 14.7 per cent in Devon and 11.9 per cent in Plymouth.