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Protecting children's health this Winter

Flu can be very serious for young children, and uptake of flu vaccine for two and three year olds across Wales is considerably lower than it was at the same point last year, with many fewer children protected. These are a priority group in this important public health programme as they are “super spreaders” of flu. Thus, in a winter when we anticipate flu and COVID-19 co-circulating, this is a real concern.

Maximising flu vaccine uptake in this group will protect the individual child, and is also likely to be an important factor in reducing the spread of flu this winter. General practice have a unique, vital role to play in raising awareness of this with parents of two and three year olds, and in making it easy for these children to get their vaccine.

Evidence shows that inviting eligible individuals to have their flu vaccination can make a difference (English/Welsh) and template invitation letters aimed at parents or guardians in a range of languages are available here. More and more practices are using text messaging to invite their patients for a flu vaccine. My Health Text (MHT; benefit summary here) is funded by NHS Wales and provided as a free service to all general practices in Wales (via their GP System Supplier). A range of posters, flyers, leaflets and more to support awareness raising about flu vaccination can be found on our campaign padlet here. This includes resources specific to two and three year olds such as:

Many of these are available to order free at https://phw.nhs.wales/services-and-teams/health-information-resources/ and may be displayed/ shared in general practices, community pharmacies, schools, preschool settings and lots of other places to remind parents.

Latest national flu vaccine uptake data can be seen at http://nww.immunisation.wales.nhs.uk/ivor. Practice and cluster level flu immunisation uptake figures, collected using Audit+, can be viewed through the interactive report for each practice here. There is wide variation in uptake between practices.

 

(Source: Public Health Wales)