A vaccination campaign has been launched to try to contain an outbreak of mumps.

There have been 61 reported cases in the Mid Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) area in the first eight months of this year.

This is a sharp rise on the year before when only eight cases were reported.

Health chiefs want to get as many young people vaccinated as possible to prevent the outbreak from spreading.

The current outbreak is affecting adolescents and young adults under 25 years of age who were not fully vaccinated with MMR when they were children.

From October 11 the PCT will be offering MMR vaccinations to all 16 to 18-year-olds.

The idea is to target students this age as they are the ones most likely to go on to further education at university and college where they will be more vulnerable to infection.

Although parental consent is not required for young people 16 years or older, colleges will be sending letters home with the students to give to their parents telling them about the illness as well as the offer of vaccination.

Claire Flowerdew, Children and Young Person Services Manager at the PCT, said: "A lot of teenagers this age have had just the one routine MMR vaccination. Two vaccinations are now given routinely to children but that was only introduced relatively recently and older teenagers have not had the second one which can give them extra protection.

"Making sure they are vaccinated now will hopefully pre-empt any problems in the next two years when they go on to university."

The campaign is expected to be finished by Christmas.

Mumps is often a minor illness in childhood but the older you are when you get the infection the more unpleasant it can be. Before the introduction of MMR vaccine in 1988 mumps was the commonest cause of meningitis in Britain and it can also cause sterility.

Even without complications mumps can make people feel pretty ill and recovery can take several weeks.