As it emerges that two children have died in measles outbreaks so far this year, mother Catherine Cooper has shared her experiences of caring for her baby through measles, and the anger she felt towards those responsible.
Mum's Terrifying Ordeal
Mum Catherine Cooper has shared her terrifying experiences of caring for her baby through measles. For the first time in nearly a decade, two children in England and Wales have tragically died in a single year after contracting measles, as health officials warn that the airborne disease is circulating in many parts of the country.
The UK Health Security Agency revealed a massive spike in measles activity earlier this year, with major outbreaks tearing through London, the East of England, and the West Midlands. An additional 106 laboratory-confirmed measles cases were recorded in just the last fortnight, bringing the total to 736 since January.
For parents like Sunday Times bestselling author Catherine Cooper, these figures bring back terrible memories. Twenty-two years ago, Catherine's eldest child, Toby, caught the highly infectious disease when he was just eight months old. She has previously issued a stern warning to anti-vax parents who actively choose not to vaccinate their children, leaving them unprotected against deadly diseases.
How Toby Contracted Measles
Toby caught the virus at a gym creche she attended while the family lived in South London. At that time, he was a perfectly healthy baby but too young to receive the MMR vaccine, which is typically given at one year old.
Catherine, who now lives in the South of France, realised something was seriously wrong when Toby developed red eyes, a high temperature, and a signature full-body rash.
He was obviously ill, Catherine told the Mirror. Normally if he was ill, I would give him Calpol and keep an eye on him, and like most babies, he would be better later the next day. But that time, maybe because of the rash, I knew he needed to go to the doctor.
At the clinic, the GP rushed them through to avoid infecting a crowded waiting room. The doctor said it looked like he had measles. Catherine was shocked, as she thought measles was something that did not really happen anymore. The doctor even asked if she could show her younger colleague, who had probably never seen a case of measles before.
The stunned mum was then told to take her child home and care for him there. Happily, after a week at home, Toby came out the other side absolutely fine. But Catherine knows that things could have been very different, and that her son had been very lucky.
Severe Complications of Measles
In severe cases, measles can result in serious complications, including meningitis, blindness, pneumonia, and seizures. When little Toby fell ill, South London was something of a hot spot for parents who were not vaccinating their kids.
This was back when many still followed the advice of anti-vaccine activist and fraudster Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 Lancet MMR autism study inaccurately linked autism to the MMR vaccine. Alarmist publicity over this widely debunked study led to a steep decline in vaccination uptake and various measles outbreaks.
Between 1996 and 2002, MMR vaccination rates dropped from 91.8 per cent to 81 per cent in England and Wales. In some regions, including London, the coverage rate dropped below 60 per cent.
For parents like Catherine, who fully support vaccinations, they too were left suffering as outbreaks spread into creches and nurseries. She has now urged others to consider other people's children as well as their own before making what is all too often viewed as an individual choice.
Catherine's Message to Anti-Vaxxers
Catherine said, It had not been my choice. He was not old enough for MMR. If I had chosen for him not to have MMR, then I would have blamed myself, but I did not because he was not old enough, so I blamed whoever had made that choice, almost for him, really.
And I think this is what people do not really appreciate, is they are not only making a choice for their own child, they are making a choice for all the other children or people that that child potentially comes into contact with. And particularly if you are really immunosuppressed or if you have other illnesses, it can be particularly dangerous. But even for a healthy child, it can be dangerous.
Disgraced Wakefield was struck off the medical register for serious professional misconduct in 2010, following an inquiry by the General Medical Council, while The Lancet has now fully retracted Wakefield's discredited study.
Unfortunately, Wakefield's shadow still looms large and, in a world of widespread misinformation, experts have noted a disturbing trend. Indeed, as per the UK Health Security Agency, there were 2,911 laboratory-confirmed measles cases in England in 2024, the highest annual number on record since 2012.
With a wealth of readily available information at their fingertips, one might presume that today's parents can research and debunk myths with greater ease than those before them. Catherine is not surprised to find this is not the case. Her own painful experiences have left her with an almost unhealthy interest in misinformation and conspiracy theories.
She explained, It is mainly the growth of social media. It is now very easy to take your theory and get it out there, and if you do it in the right way, people will believe it. I think back in the day, these people probably still existed, but they could not get their message out quite so rampantly.
In some ways it is surprising because with the internet it should be easy to keep yourself informed, but in some ways it is not surprising because there is so much bad information out there that is very easily accessible, and of course, the way the algorithms work, once you start looking at this thing, you are fed more and more until it becomes self-perpetuating.
Toby's Recovery and Ongoing Warning
Toby is now an engineering student in his 20s, but for Catherine, the memory of caring for her sick baby remains, and the ordeal has had a significant impact on her life. It even inspired part of the plot of her second novel, The Chateau, although you will have to purchase the twisty thriller for yourself to find out more.
Outside the fictional world, Catherine now takes every opportunity she can to raise awareness of the importance of vaccinations and to tackle health misinformation. However, she admits it is not always easy to persuade those who are already stuck in this fixed mindset.
She reflected, It seems to have blown up so much, particularly since Covid. I do think it is a worry because once somebody has got into this mindset, it is very, very hard to get them out of it. While I do like to speak about my experience of this, part of me knows that it is probably not going to make that much difference because people who are really, really ingrained in it are going to just be like, 'Oh okay, well she would say that.'
Issuing a warning to others, Catherine continued, I think people kind of have the attitude of, 'Oh, it will not happen to me, it will not happen to my child,' and it does happen. Toby was lucky; he was fine, but some children are not.
