The importance of immunising children against measles with the MMR vaccination will be stressed in a new advertising campaign, which highlights the fact that over 1,000 cases of the disease have been reported in the State this year.
Announcing the campaign, the Minister for Health and Children said two children who contracted measles during a recent outbreak in north Dublin had died. Other seriously ill children had been hospitalised.
Mr Martin said expert advice indicated that measles, mumps and rubella could be eradicated if 95 per cent of parents availed of the free MMR vaccine from their GP.
"The main reason an outbreak such as the Dublin one can occur is the insufficient level of immunity in the population," he said.
"The take-up of primary immunisation in Ireland is well below that in other European countries and for MMR it is particularly unsatisfactory, with a national average of 77 per cent at two years of age and rates as low as 68 per cent in some areas," Mr Martin added.
Ms Maureen Windle, the chief executive of the Northern Area Health Board, said parents must be made aware of what a serious illness measles could be, with possible complications including pneumonia and brain damage. Ms Windle said she was confident the radio and television advertisements over the next two weeks would bring "a very positive response" from parents of young children.
"The low take-up level would appear to indicate that this message is not fully understood by everybody, as in some areas up to a quarter of children remain unvaccinated.
"This is an issue which we hope this public awareness campaign will address," she said.
After the recent outbreak of the disease in Dublin the Eastern Regional Health Authority and the Northern Area Health Board set up special vaccination clinics in affected districts and lowered the age at which children could receive the vaccination from 15 months to six.
A specially formed outbreak control group alerted local GPs to the situation and requested them to immunise all children of an eligible age.
The director of the national disease surveillance centre, Dr Dorina O'Flanagan, yesterday described the MMR as "one of the safest vaccinations ever invented".
She said research in England linking the vaccine to the development of autism in children had not been substantiated by research by the Royal College of Physicians, the World Health Organisation and at least three further recent studies.
Dr O'Flanagan said no vaccine was totally without risk, but in the case of the MMR vaccine the benefits outweighed the possible risks.