PRIVATE doctors are being forced to ration single dose alternatives to the MMR triple vaccine after a huge increase in demand.

GPs at a private clinic in Whalley Range, Manchester, have been inundated with requests for single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines and have run out.

Fears that the MMR jab may be linked to autism and bowel disorders have led some parents to opt for the single jabs as a ''safer alternative''.

The practice - Manchester Independent Family Doctors - is believed to be the only one in the city offering them. The total cost of vaccinating a child privately - at 12 to 18 months and again three to four years later - is £460.

Dr Simon Fordham and his partner Dr Amar Ahmed at the private clinic are taking more than 50 calls a day and already have 100 children on a waiting list for a £45 measles immunisation. They say they are not likely to get any more vaccine until next month.

Unprepared

Dr Fordham said: ''We are going to have to limit it somehow because we cannot keep pace. It has caught us unprepared. The limiting factor at the moment is getting hold of the vaccine, but we are going to have to limit it to a first come basis or something like that.''

Dr Fordham said he has no doubts over the safety of MMR and two of his own children have had it. He provides it because some parents would not have their children vaccinated at all if they could not get the single doses.

Dr Wendy Rankin, consultant paediatrician specialising in children with disabilities and Manchester's immunisation co-ordinator, said that people have forgotten how dangerous measles can be.

''One in 20 children with measles will get pneumonia, one in 200 will have a fit and one in 1,000 will get meningitis, which can be fatal.''

Dr Stephen Tyler, senior lecturer in special education needs at Manchester Metropolitan University, a leading centre for research into autism, will talk to parents on the issues surrounding MMR and autism on Thursday February 21 at 12.30pm and 6.30pm at the Institute of Education, Wilmslow Road, Didsbury.