More than 1,000 people were vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) during a recent outbreak.
The measles outbreak, which was concentrated mainly around the University of Edinburgh, started in October with 18 confirmed cases in total.
NHS Lothian has now declared the outbreak officially over after the city put key control measures in place to reduce the spread of the highly contagious disease.
These include prompt identification and follow-up, isolation of cases and contacts, and setting up vaccination clinics, including during evenings and weekends.
The MMR vaccination clinics were run on University of Edinburgh sites, in a local school and at hospitals, with 1,003 people vaccinated across the capital during the outbreak.
The latest figures show almost 95% of two-year-olds in the Lothian area have been vaccinated against MMR.
Dr Richard Othieno, consultant in public health medicine and chair of the incident management team at NHS Lothian, said: "After a long monitoring period of two incubation periods (42 days), we can now declare the measles outbreak over.
"Vaccination is the most effective way for people to protect themselves against measles. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are required for effective immunity.
"Childhood immunisation uptake in Lothian is extremely high and the best way to protect yourself or your child against this illness is to ensure you are fully protected with two doses of the MMR vaccine.
"We are keen to ensure that anyone who has missed out has the opportunity to be vaccinated."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel