Marlborough College has dismissed suggestions that with other major public schools it provides a potential threat of a measles outbreak that will harm teenagers’ health in the town.
Professor John Ashton, who represents the country’s public health doctors, claimed in the medical journal The Lancet that the combination of high numbers of middle-class children whose parents refused to have them vaccinated, plus overseas pupils with unknown health records, meant such schools might form “reservoirs of disease”, threatening the wider population.
He said their pupils could pose a health threat to the rest of the population similar to that from groups such as gypsies and travellers, who have previously spread the infectious disease because parents rejected the MMR jab.
Professor Ashton, who is soon to become president of the Faculty of Public Health, representing all public health doctors, said the UK’s 600,000 children in private education were falling victim to a number of combined risks.
“You’ve got a lot of middle-class, well-off parents, large numbers of whom did not have their children immunised because of the Wakefield scare — which was a very middle-class phenomenon,” he pointed out.
But Jonathan Leigh, Master of Marlborough, which has more than 800 boarding and day pupils aged from 13 to 18, has revealed that the College carries out thorough health checks on its students.
“A detailed medical history, including vaccination records, is sought from all pupils who join Marlborough College,” he told Marlborough News Online. “All pupils receive a health check on arrival at the College.
“Detailed records are maintained within our full-time medical centre and the College’s chief medical officer works closely with colleagues in MOSA, and with NHS / Public Health guidance to support the ongoing health and wellbeing of pupils.”
He added: Our medical centre and the chief medical officer will continue to monitor the current measles situation, with a view to responding appropriately when and if public health guidance with respect to an MMR catch-up programme is received.”
Some public schools have reacted angrily to Professor Ashton’s statement.
Dr Christopher Ray, the chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said the importance of vaccination had been undermined by an “ill-founded attack on independent education”.
Dr Ray, who is High Master of Manchester Grammar School, said the picture painted by Professor Ashton of the independent school sector’s approach to health was “woefully inaccurate”.
Independent schools had close links with the NHS, and their policies were highly regulated. “The inspectorate which closely monitors the policies and performance of schools in our highly regulated sector will be astonished to learn that independent schools have the autonomy to be the law unto themselves,” he declared.
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