CONCERNED health chiefs are urging teenagers and young people to make sure they have full MMR protection after an outbreak of mumps.

Cases started cropping up in the Wimborne and Corfe Mullen area last autumn and the disease has spread across the rest of the county.

Dr Sue Bennett, director of the Dorset Health Protection Unit, said it had been notified of nearly 300 suspected cases between September and January, and half a dozen at Bourn-mouth University in recent weeks.

Even more worrying is the threat of measles, which can cause life-threatening complications. Cases have risen by a third nationally.

Dr Bennett said: “About 215 of our mumps cases were in the 15 to 24 age group. We do know that’s the age group at particular risk because of the timing of when MMR (the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination) was introduced in 1988.

“The second dose wasn’t brought in until 1996 and you need two doses to give you close to 100 per cent immunity. The majority of those cases will have had at best one dose, although quite a few won’t have had any.”

She said: “Mumps is often thought to be the more benign disease, but before MMR came in it was the commonest cause of viral meningitis in the country.”

“Rubella is terribly rare in this country, but the potential is there for that to come back.”

She said Bournemouth University students had been “strongly encouraged” to have the second MMR dose before enrolling.

“It’s never too late. If you have a third dose by accident, it won’t do you any harm,” she said.

A spokesman for the university said: “It would appear that we have had one or two students a week recently presenting with mumps. These have been reported as cases of a mild nature.”

Dr Adrian Dawson, director of public health for Bournemouth and Poole, said: “At 85 per cent, the MMR vaccination rate in Bournemouth and Poole is higher than the national average.

“I would urge all those under 25 and parents of younger children to make sure they have had both of the necessary vaccinations and where they have not, to get this done at their GP surgery.”