Flu jab for 3 year old

[thegoodnameshadgone]

Yay or nay?

[HopperBusTicket]

It's not a jab for children. It's a squirt up the nose. We've said yes for our son when it's been offered. Flu is horrible and the vaccination is low risk. I believe one of the reasons for vaccinating young children is that they can act as a reserve of flu in the population increasing risk for older people who are more susceptible to the risks of flu and less responsive to vaccination because their immune systems are less active. So there's an ethical question there - the small risk of vaccination for the child to protect older people. But I still think it's enough benefit for my son (and the older people in our family) for him to have it done.

[CPtart]

As a practice nurse that vaccinates, if your child is otherwise healthy then I wouldn't bother. It still doesn't sit comfortably with me to vaccinate healthy children en masse for the greater good (of many who are vulnerable but refuse to be vaccinated themselves, and there are thousands). Always exceptions to the rule of course, and the nasal spray is of great benefit to vulnerable children, but I declined it for my DC as I do the flu vaccine for myself and have done in over 25 years of nursing.

[HopperBusTicket]

That's interesting CP. Why do you refuse - do you think the risks of the vaccine are significant or there is some benefit to actually catching flu? We are offered the vaccination free at work and I always have it. I only caught flu once and it was so so awful I never want to catch it again.

[AppleYumYum]

Personally I never get the flu vaccine, but I'm pro vaccination for anything else. I got letters for my 4 and 2 year old to attend the GP for them.

The flu mutates so rapidly, by the time you've developed a vaccine and had it manufactured and distributed etc it isn't going to be that effective any more against the current strains that you will be getting exposed to.

[CPtart]

I've had flu twice. It was awful I was in bed for days but I am healthy and my body responded and I recovered. If I am in nursing 36 years (by the time I retire) that would be 36 vaccines the government would have me have (so I don't go off sick), plus another 25 vaccines approximately from 65 years onwards until death. That would be around 60 vaccines for flu in my lifetime. I don't want them, at least not yet, whilst my body is fit and responsive to infection. Of course if I had a chronic illness. It would be different. Same for my DC. But we don't. And I refuse to vaccinate us all to protect the likes of my grandma who never had a flu vaccine in her life and refused to do so. Yet she was far more at risk of complications.