NHS Hospitals began vaccinating frontline healthcare workers and their patients who fall into at risk categories against swine flu from Wednesday 21 October. The vaccination programme will be rolled out over the next few weeks with GP surgeries receiving deliveries from Monday (26 October).
Around two million frontline health and social care workers will be offered the vaccine. This group is at increased risk of infection and of transmitting that infection to susceptible patients. Protecting these people will help the NHS workforce to remain resilient and able to treat sick patients.
The following at risk groups will be prioritised in the following order:
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people aged over six months and under 65 years in current seasonal flu vaccine clinical at risk groups
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all pregnant women
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household contacts of people with compromised immune systems e.g. people in regular close contact with patients on treatment for cancer
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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 to the virus.
Patients will be contacted by their GPs if they fall into one of the at risk categories.
The GSK vaccine (Pandemrix) will be offered to the vast majority of people. It has been licensed and approved by the European regulators. Most people will need only one dose of this vaccine for protection.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer has said:
'This is the first pandemic for which we have had vaccine to protect people. I urge everyone in the priority groups to have the vaccine – it will help prevent people in clinical risk groups from getting swine flu and the complications that may arise from it.
'It's important for frontline health and social care workers to have the vaccine. It will help prevent them and their families getting the virus from patients, it will stop them passing the virus onto their patients, it will potentially protect them from mutated strains and it will reduce the disruption to NHS services caused by people being absent due to illness.'
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