YORK'S health leaders are supporting a campaign calling for parents to catch up on their children's missed vaccinations.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) initiated the campaign, which included a video told from the perspective of children.

In the video, the children said: "Our generation’s risk of illnesses like measles and whooping cough is rising.

"If we’re not vaccinated, we’re not protected."

The campaign has come in response to a decade-long fall in the uptake of childhood vaccinations, including whooping cough, measles, polio and meningitis.

Showing support for the campaign, City of York Council's director of public health, Peter Roderick said: "We are particularly appealing to parents to check their children’s vaccination status and book appointments if their children have missed any immunisations.

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"The ongoing measles outbreak we are seeing is a reminder of the very present threat."

Mr Roderick's counterpart at North Yorkshire Council, Louise Wallace, said: "While the majority of York and North Yorkshire is protected, there are still high numbers of children in some areas that continue to be unprotected from preventable diseases.

"It is not just their own health that can suffer, but other unvaccinated people around them such as school friends, family and those in their community could also experience serious infections."

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently repeated its warning on the growing measles threat due to vaccination rates well below their 95 per cent target, explaining that more than half the world faces high measles risk.