More than 30,000 students at Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University are being offered the MMR vaccination after a disturbing rise in mumps cases.

The local health protection team has been closely monitoring mumps outbreaks at both universities in the light of increases on campuses across the UK.

So far this term there have been 65 cases at Oxford Brookes and 25 cases reported from Oxford University.

Although not all the cases have been confirmed as mumps, the health protection team has decided to launch a vaccination programme to limit any outbreak.

The aim is to immunise students before they leave Oxford for the Christmas break.

First-year students were offered a vaccination when they arrived at the universities at the beginning of the winter term.

Disease control consultant Dr Kyle Knox urged students to come forward if they had not suffered from mumps or have not received the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine.

He said students born between 1980 and 1992 were in most need of immun- isation.

The MMR vaccination programme was launched in 1988, and now forms part of the national immunisation programme for young children.

Dr Knox said: "The details of how the vaccination programme will be carried out are still being decided and the universities will inform students as soon as further information is available."

He ruled out any prospect of the controversial hypothesis linking the MMR vaccination with cases of autism being an issue for students.

He said: "It has been completely refuted. We have a safe and effective vaccine against mumps."

Mumps is an acute viral illness transmitted by direct contact with saliva or droplets from saliva of an infected person. It causes about 1,200 hospital admissions in the UK each year.