{"id":93874,"date":"2025-12-06T15:34:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T15:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks"},"modified":"2025-12-06T15:55:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T15:55:06","slug":"health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks","title":{"rendered":"Health Officials Link Low Immunisation Rates to Outbreaks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>The Western Cape&#8217;s Health Department has pointed to falling immunisation rates among children as the leading cause of childhood disease outbreaks.<\/p>\n<p>The department noted that Cape Town&#8217;s urban areas, including Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and Mfuleni, have reported increases in measles cases.<\/p>\n<p>It further warns that the nationwide decline in childhood vaccinations poses a serious public health risk and the rapid spread of measles, rubella and diphtheria highlights significant gaps in population immunity.<\/p>\n<p>Department spokesperson Monique Johnstone explained: \u201cWe urge parents not to assume their children are immune. Help us protect our children by taking them for their routine immunisations and signing consent forms when our school vaccination teams visit their schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. The Western Cape&#8217;s Health Department has pointed to falling immunisation rates among children as the leading cause of childhood disease outbreaks. The department noted that Cape Town&#8217;s urban areas, including Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and Mfuleni, have reported increases in measles cases. It further warns that the nationwide decline in childhood vaccinations poses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":93873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-93874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Health Officials Link Low Immunisation Rates to Outbreaks - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Western Cape&#039;s Health Department has pointed to falling immunisation rates among children as the leading cause of ch ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Health Officials Link Low Immunisation Rates to Outbreaks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Western Cape&#039;s Health Department has pointed to falling immunisation rates among children as the leading cause of ch ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-06T15:34:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-06T15:55:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765023821.057798.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Health Officials Link Low Immunisation Rates to Outbreaks\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-06T15:34:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-06T15:55:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks\"},\"wordCount\":133,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765023821.057798.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"miscellaneous\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/health-officials-link-low-immunisation-rates-to-outbreaks\",\"name\":\"Health Officials Link Low Immunisation Rates to Outbreaks - 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