'Measles made me feel helpless'

Dan Whitworth
Newsbeat reporter

The government is launching a campaign to innoculate every child

It used to kill thousands of children in the UK every year and around the world measles still does.

Since doctors here started vaccinating against it in the 1960s the number of cases has plummeted.

But now there are fears the disease could be on the rise again after worried parents spent years avoiding the MMR vaccine which was wrongly linked to autism.

Now the government is launching a campaign to inoculate every child in England, where the number of cases is growing the quickest.

Newsbeat went to meet one family that has been affected by the disease.

'Moping around'

Richard Fuller lives with his partner and their sons, two-year-old Aiden and Ethan who is one, in Stanmore in Middlesex.

Six months ago both the boys came down with measles and were ill for two weeks.

"They just sat around moping the whole time," said Richard. "If you left them alone, even for a minute, they'd start crying because they were desperate for comfort and it took a while before they got back to their usual selves.

"Even after those two weeks, when they did start to get better, it took them a while to get back to where they were confidence wise."

Great idea

Richard says as a parent he felt even worse that he was fine while the boys weren't.

He added: "When they get ill you feel as though you've done something wrong and it really scares you.

Richard and his son Aiden Fuller

"And while they're not themselves you start to wonder if there's something really wrong. Especially with measles because you know it's a killer."

As for the government's idea of a new vaccination programme Richard reckons it's a great idea.

"You can never be safe enough," he warned. "Having been through it, where we put off having the jabs to make them immune to it, if they can get the jabs it just protects them and gives you that peace of mind".