Swine flu vaccine and children who don’t go to nursery

12 November 2009

The Medical Officer of Health, Dr Rosemary Geller, has issued the following statement about when swine flu vaccines will be offered to young children above the age of 6 months who don’t go nursery:

"We have started the vaccination programme in schools and nurseries because these children are at increased risk of catching swine flu because they congregate in large numbers for long periods of time.

“Children of nursery school age who are not at nursery are at less risk of getting swine flu. However, we will be offering the swine flu vaccination to these children once we have completed the schools and nurseries programme.

“In the meantime I would urge parents to bear with us and not to ring their GPs about this matter. We are making arrangements about how this will be offered and an announcement will be made in the media within the next few weeks.”