Swine flu vaccine offered to young

Young having swine flu vaccine

The swine flu vaccine is to be rolled out to children under the age of five from December, the UK government have announced. This is following the recent rise in serious illnesses of those aged between six months and five.

Currently NHS workers, pregnant women and people with health problems are able to get the vaccination, but from December, as well as young children, people caring for the elderly or disabled people will also be offered the jab, the BBC report.

Expected

It was expected that the vaccination programme would move on to children. Some believe that all school children will be vaccinated eventually. UK political party the Conservatives have already said all under-25s should get the jab next.

But, on the advice of its vaccination experts, the government decided to concentrate on the youngest age groups.

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said there had been a rise in serious illnesses recently among young children that was "causing concern."

"We consider them to be seriously at risk. Parents are standing by intensive care beds in life and death situations. We are out to save lives and fight this pandemic all the way."

The number of under-fives currently in hospital with swine flu in England is 200, but evidence shows that under-fives are three times more likely than other age group to need hospital care.

The majority of those children requiring hospital treatment, which is 81 percent, were previously healthy.

Fall in cases

Last week, 64,000 new cases of the condition were reported as occurring in the previous week, down from 84,000 in the week before, British newspaper The Telegraph reports.

But, Sir Donaldson said the drop could be due to a lag effect caused by the school half term.

The number of cases of swine flu tend to be higher when children are in school as they are known to spread the virus easily.

Last week, the death toll in the UK stood at 182, with 124 deaths in England, 33 in Scotland, 11 in Northern Ireland and 14 in Wales.

The first wave of vaccinations, which is being offered to nearly 14 million people, is not expected to be finished until Christmas.

There is likely to be some overlap, with GPs likely to be asked to start giving immunisations to children once they are close to completing the initial priority groups.

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