Child dies at Alder Hey Children’s hospital as measles cases surge

A baby has died at Liverpool’s Alder Hey Kids’s Hospital after contracting measles, the BBC understands.

There was a surge in children being taken to the hospital after changing into critically unwell with the extremely contagious virus.

Alder Hey stated it will not formally touch upon particular person circumstances to respect affected person confidentiality however the dying has been confirmed to the BBC.

No particulars have been launched about whether or not the kid was being handled for different well being issues or their vaccination standing.

It’s thought 17 kids have been handled at Alder Hey for the virus since June.

The kid is believed to be solely the second within the UK in a decade to have died after contracting measles, after Renae Archer, of Salford, Larger Manchester, died aged 10 in 2023.

An Alder Hey Kids’s NHS Basis Belief spokesperson stated: “To respect affected person confidentiality, we will not touch upon particular person circumstances.

“We’re involved concerning the growing variety of kids and younger people who find themselves contracting measles.

“Measles is a extremely contagious viral sickness which might trigger kids to be critically unwell, requiring hospital therapy, and in uncommon circumstances, dying.”.

The hospital warned dad and mom earlier this week {that a} fall in measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine uptake was behind the spike in measles cases within the area.

Chief nurse Nathan Askew stated he felt misunderstandings across the vaccine have been responsible.

“This vaccine’s been in use for nicely over 50 years. It is very protected, tried and examined,” he stated.

Sufferers on the web site embrace these with compromised immunity as a consequence of different well being points “making them extra vulnerable to infections, together with measles, an Alder Hey spokesperson stated.

Measles infections normally begin with cold-like signs resembling a runny nostril and coughing and sneezing, according to the NHS.

That is adopted inside days by a particular blotchy rash, which normally begins on the face and spreads to the remainder of the physique.

A joint report by the World Well being Group (WHO) and the UN kids’s fund, Unicef, just lately discovered that the variety of measles cases in Europe has reached its highest level in 25 years.

Professor Helen Bedford, head of youngsters’s well being on the College Faculty of London, stated it was “massively regarding, however in no way shocking, that we’re persevering with to see outbreaks of measles” after the kid’s dying at Alder Hey.

She stated there wanted to be a “sustained 95% uptake” of two doses of the MMR vaccine to cease outbreaks of the extremely infectious illness.