HEALTH chiefs in a North-East town are concerned there will be a rise in mumps cases after the school holidays.

Since January, there have been 81 notified cases of the disease in Darlington and 14 of these have been laboratory confirmed.

The majority of confirmed cases were teenagers aged 15 to 17. There was one patient aged 23.

Earlier this month, 150 students and staff at Carmel Technology College were immunised with the triple MMR vaccine in a bid to prevent the outbreak spreading.

Fears were raised further after it was revealed there had a been a sharp drop in the number of children in the region having the MMR vaccine.

The last notified case of mumps was on April 15, but experts said there may be more cases in the next few weeks.

After a person has been vaccinated, it can take four weeks before they are immunised against the disease, leaving them open to infection.

Dr Deb Wilson, consultant in communicable disease control at Darlington Primary Care Trust, said: " We are trying to keep an eye on numbers and ages to gauge the effect of the Carmel school and Queen Elizabeth sixth form vaccination campaigns.

"Hopefully, they will have some impact on numbers, but it will be a few weeks before we can say."