Children should be given flu vaccine to protect older people

pharmafile | December 21, 2018 | News story | Medical Communications epidemiology, flu, health, public health, vaccines 

Parents are being urged to give their children the flu vaccine in order to protect ‘older people’ from the potentially deadly virus.

The new campaign, which highlights the danger of flu for older people, hopes to encourage increased uptake of vaccines in young children.

“Children are really good at sharing their germs. And this is an opportunity to stop it being passed on to more vulnerable people,” Ros Jervis, the health board’s public health director said. “It is an illness which can be quite nasty.”

The campaign emphasises that the vaccine is administered nasally as it hopes that more two and three year olds will be protected against the flu. “It is a really simple vaccine which is just squirted up each nostril – it is needle-free, pain-free and very, very simple,” Jervis said.

Statistics show that for every six children who are vaccinated against the flu, one case of the flu is prevented.

Louis Goss

Related Content

Merck plans to conduct trials for HPV vaccines

Merck, known as MSD outside of the US and Canada, has announced that it is …

Measles: the UK’s next epidemic?

Recently, the UK has seen a rapid increase in the number of cases of measles, …

AstraZeneca to acquire Icosavax for up to $1.1bn

AstraZeneca has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Icosavax for …

Latest content