UK officials warn low measles immunization rates could lead to tens of thousands of cases in London

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Health Security Agency said that measles vaccination rates in parts of London have dropped so low that the capital could see tens of thousands of cases of the rash-causing disease. The agency said on Friday that although the risk of an outbreak across the U.K. was low, the current levels of immunization in London suggest that “a measles outbreak of between 40,000 and 160,000 cases could occur.” U.K. officials said people aged 19 to 25 were at particularly high risk of catching measles, noting that many of them may have missed vaccinations following spurious allegations made by the British physician Andrew Wakefield that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism.