Saturday 24 September 2022 10:02 PM Vaccination chiefs revive plans to give chickenpox jabs on the NHS at same time ... trends now
Vaccine chiefs are considering offering all babies jabs to protect them against chickenpox – after discussions to introduce the plan were abandoned at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
Normally a harmless illness, the virus can in rare cases lead to serious complications, including sepsis, pneumonia and brain damage.
Every year, more than 20 people die due to chickenpox in the UK and hundreds of babies are hospitalised due to severe symptoms.
But plans to institute a vaccination campaign, which would have seen thousands of babies across the UK inoculated every year, were put on hold after Government vaccine advisers were instructed to prioritise the rollout of Covid jabs.
Similar discussions took place in 2010, but were shot down by experts who worried such a campaign would not be cost-effective.
The US and several other European nations already offer jabs to all newborns against the disease.
File photo of a two-year-old girl at home sick with chickenpox
The Joint Committee on Vaccination And Immunisation (JCVI), has returned to the issue and is currently evaluating the merits of a chickenpox vaccination campaign. Pictured left to right: Professor Wei Shen Lim, chair JCVI, Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty, and Dr June Raine, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), during a Covid media briefing in Downing Street in September last year
Now, The Mail on Sunday understands that the Government's vaccine advisory group, the Joint Committee on Vaccination And Immunisation (JCVI), has returned to the issue and is currently evaluating the merits of a chickenpox vaccination campaign.
Paediatricians have been asked to advise on how they believe parents will respond and have also been asked to advise on the practicalities of fitting the vaccination into the current childhood vaccination schedule.
Research shared exclusively with this newspaper shows that three-quarters of parents support the move. Just seven per cent would be unlikely to vaccinate their child against chickenpox. Last night, Professor Adam Finn, a child vaccine expert and member of JCVI, backed the plan, arguing that children should be protected from the serious health consequences of the virus.
'Chickenpox is an entirely preventable illness in children and paediatricians like myself want to see an end to it.
'Every year, thousands of children suffer horrible, painful symptoms as a result of this virus. This is needless suffering and misery, when there is an effective, safe vaccine
