The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has found 496 cases of measles in England and Wales jointly. This numbers of cases were reported up to the end of May. In the previous year the cases were 374 in the entire year. But this year there has been rise of 122 cases in less than six month.

The cases were found most in the London and the South East. The most of the cases were of children and teenagers. The outbreak of the disease was seen in schools and universities.

Last week 20 pupils at Sands School at the small independent near Ashburton in Devon were the slaves of the disease.

Moreover it is believed that the origin of the diseases is from abroad. The countries like France, Spain, Germany and Switzerland are also in the clutch of these diseases this year.

On the other hand the immunisation rates in Britain for the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine have decreased. This was after the release of the study which was published in The Lancet in 1998. The study had wrongly linked it to autism and bowel disease.