Schoolchildren receive vital nasal flu protection
on Saturdays and in the evenings to make it as convenient as possible for parents wishing to ensure that their children are protected.
Flu can be a very unpleasant illness and much more dangerous for children than many parents realise, with potentially serious complications including bronchitis and pneumonia.
The vaccine is offered annually as part of the national immunisation programme to those in reception and up to year six to help protect them against flu. Children aged two and three are given the vaccination at their GP practice.
The national programme aims to give the best protection against a range of preventable, infectious diseases, ensuring that children are protected from infancy, through their teenage years and on to adulthood.
The Trust team also delivers HPV vaccine for girls and boys aged 12 and 13 – which protects against HPV-related cancers including cervical cancer and some head and neck cancers – and the ‘three in one’ teenage booster for diphtheria, tetanus and inactivated polio, which is administered together with meningococcalACWY,which protects against four different strains of meningitis.
The Trust’s immunisation team works in partnership with Public Health England.
The scheme include state and independent, schools which offer special educational needs and disability provision, and pupil referral units, home-educated children and traveller families, GPs, the 0-19 and looked-after children’s teams.
Trust Medical Director Dr Shaz Wahid said: “We are proud to work in partnership to provide this extremely important public health service.
“At the end of another busy year for our schoolbased immunisation service, which has included the nasal flu vaccinations, I’d like to say a big thank-you to the team for all their hard work.”