Seasonal Flu Vaccinations - Children at Risk

Your valued support with the seasonal flu vaccination campaign 2016/17 will help ensure that all eligible children are vaccinated.

This year the nasal spray flu vaccine is being made available for children in health risk groups, and as part of a healthy child programme. These programmes are important for protecting children at risk, but also for reducing flu in the community as a whole, and therefore protecting other people at risk.

Occasionally a virus can change (drift) after a vaccine has been produced. This occurs about once in every 10 years. However having a flu vaccine is still the best way of staying protected.

Please support this campaign by talking to parents about the vaccine, displaying campaign posters and downloading resources which can be found here - warwickshire.gov.uk/flu

 

Children at Risk

On the advice of the Chief Medical Officer, seasonal flu vaccine is made available to all adults and children with long-term conditions aged between 6 months and 65 years of age. The flu virus can cause serious ill-health in children with long term conditions including:

• Chronic neurological conditions
• Chronic liver problems
• Chronic kidney problems
• A low immune system, due to disease or treatment, or problems with the spleen/no spleen
• Diabetes mellitus
• Chronic respiratory conditions, such as asthma or cystic fibrosis
• Chronic heart disease

We ask you to encourage parents whose children fall into any of the categories outlined above, to be vaccinated. Vaccinations will be available through GPs (or through schools for children in Years 1, 2 and 3). The vaccination for children is a simple nasal spray.

For example, studies have shown that approximately 1.1 million children in the UK suffer with asthma. The child with mild to moderate persistent asthma misses an average of 10 school days per year and the child with severe asthma misses an average of 30 days per year.

It is likely that there is a similar, if not greater, loss of school days due to the other long term conditions. Flu is common and a healthy person will recover in a short time. However, flu carries a higher risk of serious bacterial complications and children and young people with long-term conditions are very vulnerable to the secondary complications of flu. We also know that the lowest uptake of seasonal flu vaccines is in children at-risk in the 2-16 year age group.

 

Healthy Child Programme

You will also be aware that the nasal spray vaccination is being offered to all 2, 3 and 4 year olds (through their GP), as well as all children in Years 1, 2 and 3 at school (through the school). Over the course of a number of years the government is proposing that all 2 – 16 year olds will be offered a seasonal flu vaccination, to protect themselves, but also to protect those closest to them, who may be more vulnerable to the effects of flu. This is a very important programme, as pilots have shown a reduction in the circulation of flu (and impact on the health system) in areas where primary school age children have been vaccinated.

 

If you have any queries about the vaccination programme, please contact: nadiainglis@warwickshire.gov.uk

For more information, please see www.warwickshire.gov.uk/flu or www.coventry.gov.uk/flujab

Resources (including presentations for screens and posters) are available to download and print from these websites.