Doctor explains all you need to know about chickenpox vaccine for children

Doctor explains all you need to know about chicken pox vaccine for children.Credit: Lorraine, ITV

Transcript

00:00For a small number of children, particularly young babies, but also at risk of pregnant women

00:05and older adults, it can be quite a serious illness. The spots themselves can get infected,

00:10but also you can get chickenpox pneumonitis, which is a pneumonia of the lungs, and it's

00:15really serious. You can get a strep A infection, which can be quite serious. But the most serious

00:20thing is something called chickenpox encephalitis, inflammation of the brain. And that is really

00:25significant. And sadly, some people do die from that, particularly young children. So

00:30that's why this chickenpox vaccine is really important. It's being added to the MMR vaccine,

00:35so it's going to be known as MMRV. And from January next year, so 2026, it's going to be

00:40offered to children aged 12 months to begin with, and then they have a second dose at 18

00:45months. Oh, interesting. And previously, was this vaccine available, but you'd had to have

00:49paid for it. You had to pay for it. So now this is why it's different, because the NHS is now

00:53buying it up and you can get it for your children. And how long will it last if you agree to have

00:57it for your child? So it's supposed to give you lifelong protection, but particularly for

01:01the first 20 years, it's very effective. And remember, lots of countries have been giving

01:05it out for a long time. Australia, US, Germany. So we've got lots of data on the safety, and

01:10they've seen their chickenpox numbers really decline over that time.