CAMDEN has been ranked one of the worst places in the country for rates of inoculation from killer diseases, raising fears over take-up if a coronavirus vaccine is found.

Experts have regularly said that one of the few ways out of the Covid-19 pandemic would be a safe vaccine, with researchers hoping they may discover one by the end of the year.

But new data released by Public Health England places the borough 150th out of 151 major authorities in use of key vaccination programmes in childhood.

In the latest figures, around 20 per cent of children in Camden had not been given a meningitis vaccine, while 43 per cent missed out on the diphtheria, tetanus and polio jabs.

And less than two-thirds had actually had the MMR vaccine which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. The new alert comes despite stark warnings last year that Camden was lagging behind.

The issue was raised in front of all councillors at a themed debate in April last year when a doctor stood up in the Town Hall chamber and warned the low take-up puts everybody at risk.

Conservative councillor Oliver Cooper, the leader of the opposition in Camden, said the rates were a “worrying record” which had a heightened significance in the bid to break out of the coronavirus nightmare.

“I have a concern that if we are going to get a vaccine soon, which I hope that we will for Covid-19 as it may be the only way out of it, that we might lag behind if something isn’t done to improve these inoculation rates that we have for three programmes,” he added. “We need to know what has gone wrong in the past and what we are going to fix in the future because we may only have a matter of months before we have the rollout of the most important vaccination programme in our country’s history.”

Scientists all around the world are racing to find a vaccine: optimists have said one could be ready by autumn or at least January, while others warn one may never be discovered.

Yesterday (Wednesday), Kate Bingham, chair of the UK vaccine taskforce, told a parliamentary committee that she expected one to be ready “early next year”. A trial at Oxford University is reportedly the furthest along the line as testing continues.

Cllr Cooper raised the issue of Camden’s vaccination rates at Monday evening’s Covid-19 Oversight Committee which sees a panel of backbenchers discuss issues relating to the local response to the crisis twice a month.

“We know our vaccination rate is poor but nothing much is being done about it,” he said afterwards. “That is a scandal and if it isn’t fixed it is likely that many Camden residents will die. This has been on the front page of the local newspaper, raised in the council but more than a year on, Camden is rock bottom.”

He questioned the effectiveness of the council’s themed debates if they did not lead to action.

Dr Martin Abbas, a GP in Swiss Cottage, made clear his concerns about the sliding take-up of MMR last year. “Measles is a very contagious disease, it can kill you,” he told an all-member meeting. “I often have to tell patients that they’re doing something very detrimental to their children [by declining offers of immunisation].”

Immunologists have repeatedly warned that people can die from preventable diseases because they have not been inoculated.

Dr Julie Billett, the director of Public Health for Camden and Islington, told Monday’s meeting: “This is an area where we have absolutely had some considerable challenges in terms of achieving the levels of herd immunity that we need for our population, and we’ve actively been trying to work on this for a number of years.”

She said that a “very mobile population and a lot of churn in GP registration” could make it harder, and that some groups within the borough may not have the understanding or awareness of what’s available. Some surgeries had a 30 per cent turnover of patients each year as people moved in and out, she said.

Misinformation could also be a problem, Dr Billett said, referencing the discredited report by Andrew Wakefield which wrongly declared risks of the MMR jab. This led to thousands of children going unprotected.

She told the meeting she would be working with GPs and NHS England to focus on “recovering immunisation rates” following the lockdown period when many health appointments were missed. Around 43,700 have officially died from the coronavirus in the UK since the outbreak began.

Professor Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical officer, has repeatedly raised the importance of a vaccine – or the discovery of a highly effective treatment – in ending the Covid-19 crisis.

“Until that point, we’re going to have to rely on other social measures, which are of course very socially disruptive,” he said at one press conference.