Malcolm Chisholm said people should get the MMR injection

Malcolm Chisholm said the figures demonstrated the need for everyone to have the controversial measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) injection.

The statistics said there were 370 cases of mumps in Scotland in the first four months of this year - almost eight times the total number in 2003.

Most of those affected were in their late teens or early twenties.

In January parents in Glasgow were warned about a rise in mumps cases in the city.

Disease rates

Students and staff at Stirling University have also been offered the triple injection after an outbreak of mumps on campus.

There have also been at least six outbreaks in England and Wales this year.

Figures from the Health Protection Agency, which monitors disease rates in England and Wales, suggested that there were 450 cases south of the border in the first quarter of 2004 - almost as many as in the whole of 2002.

The agency insisted that the rise in cases was not linked to the reduced take up of MMR amongst babies in recent years.

There has been a decline in the triple vaccine take-up

This is because the vast majority of those affected were aged between their late teens and 21.

They were too old to have been given the MMR vaccine introduced in the late 1980s.

People in this age group are now being urged to have the injection.

Mumps can be very serious, leading to infertility in men and serious inflammation in the brain - and can even prove fatal.

There were 370 confirmed cases of mumps in Scotland up to the end of April 2004, compared with 46 in the whole of 2003.

Mr Chisholm said: "That is certainly a matter of great concern.

Mass immunisation

"I believe this is mainly people in their late teens who have been born before the development of the MMR injection.

"The main message from this is that people should get the MMR injection."

A spokesman for the British Medical Association said the rise illustrated the value of mass immunisation programmes.

"If you have got a group that misses out then I am afraid that outbreaks will sometimes happen.