The borough's health chiefs are planning a mass programme of vaccination to protect children in the borough against an outbreak of the potentially fatal disease, measles.

Schoolchildren are to be injected with the combined MMR vaccine which protects them from measles, mumps and rubella.

Only 68 per cent of two-year-olds in Enfield were successfully vaccinated between April and June, a figure far below the World Health Organisation's recommended uptake of 95 per cent.

Dr Ugo Okoli, director of health improvement at Enfield Primary Care Trust, said: "Several recent studies have proven that the MMR vaccine is a very effective and safe means of preventing these diseases that cause both death and disability.

"I would encourage all parents to have their children vaccinated to protect their family and our local communities."

The borough's chief health provider, Enfield Primary Care Trust, will work with schools and parents to identify children that may be at risk due to low immunisation levels.

The trust will offer the MMR vaccine to all primary schoolchildren who have an incomplete vaccination history, and parents will be contacted to offer their consent if their children have not recieved the recommended two doses.

Professor Sue Atkinson, regional director of public health for London, said: "Thousands of children in London are now at risk of contracting measles, mumps and rubella following several years of decline in numbers protected by the MMR vaccine.

"It is vital that we increase the numbers of our children protected against these serious diseases as soon as possible to prevent larger epidemics, which would see some children being hospitalised."

Measles is a contagious and potentially fatal disease, which can also lead to pneumonia and deafness.

It has been largely controlled since the introduction of vaccinations.

Largely discredited research, which was published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, suggested the MMR vaccine could cause autism.