The number of Irish children being immunised with the MMR vaccine has only this year returned to the 84% uptake rate of a decade ago, after a 1998 report linking the vaccine to autism resulted in a serious drop in vaccinations.

According to Dr Darina O'Flanagan, director of the HSPA, the study had an extremely negative impact on immunisation figures, with some areas of Dublin dropping to a 59% uptake rate.

"An outbreak of measles is now inevitable, " O'Flanagan said.

"It goes in cycles, and while we are still in a dip phase of measles and rubella, with a sufficient build-up of susceptible kids, another outbreak will have to happen."

The news comes as health services in the UK announced the biggest outbreak of measles in the country since the MMR vaccine was introduced there in 1988.

The drop in immunisation uptake around the world has been directly attributed to a 1998 report by British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who claimed that the MMR . . .

which protects against measles, mumps and rubella . . . was linked to autism. It was announced last week that Wakefield could be charged with serious professional misconduct over his research, which sparked a worldwide scare about the safety of the MMR vaccine.

"We're probably just back up now to where we were before Wakefield, " O'Flanagan said.

"It's taken us this long to recover from the effect his claims had on people."

O'Flanagan said one of the biggest problems now facing the health service is the "pockets of children" who didn't receive the vaccine due to the autism scare.

"We are hoping that we will be able to go to all primary and secondary schools and offer the vaccine to all children who may not have received their second dose, " she said.

"We're having a meeting next week of the Measles Eradication Committee to finalise our report for the Department of Health and the HSE, and it is likely that we will be recommending this strategy in that report."

The HSPA figures show that the eastern area, which was worst hit by the autism scare, remains one of the worst regions for vaccination uptake at 79%. This is in comparison to midland rates of 93%.

O'Flanagan said that poverty was one of the reasons for this.

"Large urban areas always have pockets of deprivation, and there will always be low rates of uptake in deprived areas, " she said.

"There's also the problem of middle class parents who were accessing information on the web warning against the vaccination. There is some dreadful information on the web that is very antivaccine."

The World Health Organisation aims to have eliminated measles from Europe by 2010, but O'Flanagan said that Ireland's current immunisation rate will hinder this target. "If we keep going the way we are, we will be one of the countries to drag them down, " she said.