But if everyone else's child is immunised, there is no need to immunise your own.
Yesterday, there were calls for hospital anti-infection strategies to be urgently reviewed after it emerged that Mr Mohammed, who has 27 years experience as a surgeon, had previousy been immunised against hepatitis B and health tests indicated that the immunisation had worked.
According to the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, as of December, the percentage of one year olds considered fully immunised slightly increased to 91.7% in the final quarter of 2015, a rise of 0.4% compared with the previous quarter.
Many parents who do not vaccinate their children rely on "herd immunity" – the concept that once immunisation rates reach between 90-95% in a community, those who are not immunised will gain indirect protection from infectious diseases from those who are.
Generation of T-cells, another arm of the immune system, was also several times lower than that seen in immunised monkeys.
In 1998 91% of two-year-olds were immunised, but by 2004 that had fallen to 80%, far below the 90% rate needed to keep the disease under control.Reluctance to vaccinate stems from a health scare surrounding MMR, a three-in-one vaccine designed to protect children from measles, mumps and rubella.
And quite possibly, you were not immunised, and you still never got measles or whatever the disease in question is.
Nine out of ten people who are not immunised will contract the virus if they share the same living space with an infected person.
