Flu vaccine uptake concerns in Derby
Numbers are low amongst toddlers in the city.
Health bosses in Derby are concerned about the low uptake in flu vaccinations for toddlers in the City.
Data shows that only one out of every five two-year-olds and around one in every four three-year-olds have had their vaccination.
Dr Robyn Dewis, public health director at Derby City Council, says the city’s lockdown generation of pre-school children is particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases such as the flu due to reduced social interactions in their first years of life:
“That age group, they are the Covid babies, they have not met flu before because it wasn’t circulating due to the change of behaviour of Covid (lockdown, isolation, social distancing, face coverings etc) and in that two and three age group, the groups offered the flu vaccine by the GP, we have got quite a low uptake.
“So we would really like to encourage that group to take up the flu vaccine that they can get from their GP practice.
“There is a combination of children not being exposed to many things, it’s as if everything is now coming at them at once, and our behaviour over that time… (during lockdown restrictions) we showed brilliantly how we can stop the spread of infectious diseases, there was hardly any flu circulating, really minimal levels, low levels of scarlet fever and low levels or RSV.”
She said our immune systems are less able to fight a second infectious disease while recovering from an initial illness, which is what often happens in the winter but is happening to a larger extent this winter due to infections being spread out of season – including scarlet fever.
Advice from Derbyshire health officials is to book a flu vaccine by contacting your GP, who will usually have already made contact to offer your child a free vaccination.
Children aged two or three years old on August 31, 2022, are eligible for a free flu vaccine, along with school-aged children (primary and secondary schools), and those aged six months and up who have a long-term health condition.