The Health Protection Agency revealed that more than 70 per cent of the 1,352 cases reported were among older children and young people, born between 1982 and 1990, and now aged between 14 and 22.
Pat Jackson, school and public health officer at the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association, said that although schools had vaccination programmes for TB and polio, there were no schemes in place to vaccinate the older age group against mumps.
But Jackson said Health Protection Agency figures indicating an increase in the uptake in the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination in three of the last four quarters was a "cause for optimism", despite Department of Health figures showing uptake had dropped two per cent in two years.
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