Why is measles making a comeback in the UK?

As Northern Ireland reports its first case of the disease in seven years, the rest of the UK has seen a surge over the past year.

On Tuesday, the first case of measles in seven years was reported in Northern Ireland.

Outbreaks of measles have sprung up in parts of Britain in recent months amid concerns of what Dr Vanessa Saliba from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), has called a “worryingly low MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine uptake in some areas across the country”.

So where and why is measles on the rise in the UK?

In the four weeks since January 22, 169 new cases of measles have been recorded in England, taking the total number of confirmed cases there since the start of October to 581.

To put that into perspective, there were only two confirmed cases of measles across the whole of the UK in 2021 and 54 one year later.