Published on: 24 December 2019
Thousands of children in 223 primary schools in South Tyneside, Sunderland and Gateshead have received the nasal flu vaccine so far this year from South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust’s school-based immunisation service.
The team has been running additional clinics 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 can prevent children from spreading flu to their families and friends.
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 South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust team also delivers HPV vaccine for girls and boys aged 12-13, 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 Meningococcal ACWY, which protects against four different strains of meningitis.
The Trust’s immunisation team works in partnership with Public Health England, schools (including state and independent and schools which offer special educational needs and disability provision) and pupil referral units, as well as home-educated children and traveller families, GPs, the 0-19 community services and looked-after children’s teams to deliver the service. ‘Catch up’ clinics are held for those children who are absent from school when the vaccinations are delivered.
South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust’s Medical Director Dr Shaz Wahid said: “We are proud to work in partnership to provide this extremely important public health service for children and young people. At the end of another busy year for our school-based 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. It is vital that we not only maintain but increase all immunisation rates as vaccination helps to protect children and their families.”
