Unconcerned by parents’ worries about overloading their children with too many vaccines, the UK’s health authorities are introducing a new ‘super shot’ which will be a six-in-one jab, including the controversial MMR.

The child will be given three separate injections in one surgery visit, which will purportedly offer protection against measles, mumps and rubella (the MMR shot), two forms of meningitis and PCV13, an infection that can cause pneumonia.

The new shot is expected to be introduced before the end of the year, although doctors have been told to use the new super-shot only on children aged one year or older.

The UK’s health agencies are confident the new super-shot will be well received by parents, and should increase the take-up of childhood vaccinations, a rate that fell dramatically after concerns that the MMR vaccine could cause autism.

However, nobody yet knows how the six vaccines will inter-react with each other, or how an immature immune system can cope.

(Source: Sunday Times, November 21, 2010).

via Children to get new six-in-one vaccine | What Doctors Don’t Tell You.