WHO continues to recommend measles, mumps and rubella vaccines as epidemiologically appropriate. In one of Dr Wakefield's articles, he offers an opinion that it would be safer to administer MMR as three separate vaccines on three different occasions. His opinion is not substantiated by scientific observation, and WHO can find no scientific justification for this point of view. WHO promotes the administration of MMR and other combined vaccines as being generally lower in cost and because they reduce the number of injections needed per child. Parents are pleased with fewer injections for their children, and the risk from unsafe injections is reduced still further.
Combination products are equally safe and effective as separate vaccines.
Single antigen administration delays completion of immunization and exposes children to the risk of infection with vaccine preventable disease. Both are equally effective in preventing disease, and equally safe. However, when epidemiologically appropriate, the advantages make the combined vaccine the WHO vaccine of choice. 93 countries in the world use MMR vaccine in their childhood vaccination programmes, most of them in Europe and the Region of the Americas. The remaining countries use measles vaccine by itself.