Swine-Flu News Update

The  Department  of  Health has announced that the swine flu vaccination programme will be extended to offer children over six months and under five years protection against the virus.

Children  under  five  years of age are more likely than other groups to be hospitalised  if  they  become ill with swine flu. Young children also have high  rates  of admission to critical care and, sadly, there have been some deaths

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Who will be vaccinated?

1. People aged over 6 months and under 65 years in current seasonal flu vaccine clinical at-risk groups. Which includes:
   1. serious heart disease  
   2. serious lung disease, like emphysema, bronchitis, cystic fibrosis or asthma  
   3. serious kidney or liver disease
   4. a long-term health problem, like diabetes
   5. a weakened immune system - eg from chemotherapy, radiotherapy or steroid treatment  
2. All pregnant women, subject to licensing conditions on trimesters.
3. Household contacts of people with compromised immune systems e.g. people in regular close contact with patients on treatment for cancer.  
4. People aged 65 and over in the current seasonal flu vaccine clinical at-risk groups. This does not include otherwise healthy over 65s, since they appear to have some natural immunity.
5. All children over the age of 6 months and younger than 5 years.

Decisions on vaccinating the wider healthy population will depend on the evolution of the pandemic as well as new and emerging clinical data on the use of the vaccine.