Family backs child swine flu jabs plan (From Echo)

Family backs child swine flu jabs plan

10:00am Monday 10th August 2009 in News By Paul Offord

All better now – Joe Bland, 12 was one of the first people in Essex to contract swine flu

EVERY schoolchild in the UK could be immunised against swine flu under new Government plans.

The scheme, which is being seriously considered by ministers, would be the biggest mass vaccination since pupils were given jabs against smallpox in 1964.

The move was welcomed by the family of Joe Bland, 12, of Broomfield Green, Canvey, who was one of the first people in Essex to contract swine flu, following a family holiday to Mexico in April this year.

Joe made a quick recovery, but his mum Louise, 33, knows not everyone has been so lucky.

A man, in his thirties, who passed away at Basildon Hospital on July 10, was the first person in the country to die solely from swine flu with no other underlying conditions.

Mrs Bland said: “For Joe it was just like a 24-hour bug and he’s made a full recovery, but obviously it has been a lot more serious for other people.

“It’s better to be safe than sorry. So I’m glad it sounds like they are going to immunise all schoolchildren.

“Every other person seems to have swine flu now, but it’s hard to tell how many cases are real because they are aren’t testing for it anymore.”

The vaccination injections, for five to 16 year olds, could be given at schools by nurses, health visitors and doctors.

Parents would need to give permission for their child to be vaccinated.

The proposals emerged as new Government figures show the number of people being diagnosed with swine flu nationally dropped from 110,000 to 30,000 over the past week.

But there have been nine new deaths related to the virus in the past week. A total of 36 people have died in the UK from swine flu.

Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson urged against complacency and predicted a “second wave” would hit the country after children return to school in the autumn.

He said: “We would anticipate when the schools were back, at some point after that, it will start to rise again.”

However, he conceded there was no evidence the virus was mutating or developing a resistance to medication. He said: “I don’t think it suggests any increase in severity in the disease because we would have expected a higher proportion to be in intensive care or in hospital if the severity was increasing.”