All children under 17 should be offered an annual free flu vaccine, the chief medical officer has conceded. The NHS’s current seasonal flu campaign targets only toddlers.
Dame Sally Davies suggested that a lack of funds in the NHS was preventing the offer of a free nasal spray flu vaccine being extended to more children.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme why free vaccines were not yet offered more widely, Davies said: “We are steadily rolling out a programme for that, it will go up a year every year … We are offering this vaccine to two-, three- and four-years-olds through their GPs this year.”
Asked whether children should be given the flu vaccine each year up to the age of four, she replied: “And five, six, seven, because every year we have new strains of flu that come to our shores. We don’t know which strain will be predominant so we need to give a new vaccine every year. I get a vaccine every year.”
Davies added: “It isn’t cheap but think about what it is saving in terms of unhappiness, deaths and then not bunging up the NHS. Prevention is better than cure. As a society we shouldn’t put off prevention. I really believe in prevention.”
The over-65s and anyone who has a chronic illness are also eligible for a free vaccine this year. But Davies said it was priority to target toddlers because they were more likely to infect others.
“We want children to be vaccinated first and foremost to protect themselves, because it can be very nasty. But most people have seen young children and how they wipe snot all over the place, they cuddle and are very physical and that’s how you pass flu between people. And it’s very easy to pass it to older people and people who aren’t well at home. So we want them to be vaccinated to protect themselves as well.”
Davies expressed concern that fewer parents than this time last year were taking up the offer of a free vaccine for their children. She said: “There is more to do, that’s why we are talking.”
She said fears of flu jabs were misplaced as the vaccine was administered by a harmless puff up children’s noses. “This is not an injected vaccine, it is puffed up each nostril. And the feedback last year was that children and parents found it absolutely fine. It has been used for years in the States and it’s safe,” Davies said.
The NHS said this year’s programme of free vaccines to toddlers was the first step in an extension of the national flu vaccination programme that would eventually include yearly vaccination of all two- to 16-year-olds.
In a statement launching the campaign, Davies said: “Flu can be really nasty for toddlers, leading to time off nursery, which has a big impact on mums and dads, and sometimes even a stay in hospital. They also spread the virus easily and often pass flu to grandparents and other relatives who can become very ill, fast. Giving two-, three- and four-year-olds the free nasal spray really is in everyone’s interests if you want to help avoid a miserable winter for all the family.”
