A lot of people will be happy about this (NHS roll-out of chicken pox vaccine)

[enchantedsquirrelwood]

NHS to roll out chickenpox vaccine for children (thetimes.co.uk)

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises the government, said the vaccine should be given to youngsters in two doses when they are aged 12 months and 18 months.
They said the vaccine, known as the varicella jab, would dramatically reduce circulating chickenpox and prevent most severe cases and deaths in children.
The JCVI has also recommended a temporary catch-up programme for older children, warning that pandemic restrictions suppressed chickenpox so there is currently a larger than usual pool without immunity.
The chickenpox vaccine has been given in other countries, including the US and Australia, for many years but the NHS has always said there is a worry that introducing it in the UK could increase the risk of chickenpox and shingles in adults.

They had feared that a childhood chickenpox vaccination programme might mean that unvaccinated children would go on to get chickenpox as adults, when cases can be more severe.
However, latest scientific evidence suggests that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, and the Department of Health and Social Care will now look at the best ways to implement the JCVI recommendation. It means the chickenpox vaccine is likely to be added to other routine childhood vaccinations, such as MMR.

DH and I were talking about this yesterday. Rubella is bad for unborn babies and so well before MMR girls were vaccinated against it (i was at 12) so we were wondering why chicken pox was treated differently (and indeed slapped cheek disease, which I had not even heard of before I caught it from my three year old ds, and discovered that that is something you don't want when you are pregnant either).

This is great news! Lots of other developed countries have been vaccinated for ages. We paid for DS to have it privately when he was little.

I caught chickenpox for the first time when pregnant.

You don't want to find out that you have no immunity then - and a vaccination would make that far less likely to happen.

I was on oxygen with ridiculously low sats within 3 hours of the first blister appearing on my neck and for the next fortnight, I had them everywhere, including inside me. The only good thing was that I was 27 weeks at the time, rather than in early or late pregnancy.

I had my DC vaccinated privately after a friends DC was really unwell with CP and ended up in hospital. It’s not always a mild illness and I’m glad this is finally being rolled out. The NHS is barely functioning and it wasn’t worth the risk for me and the impact on having to have time off work, never mind dealing with the reality of a quarantined unwell child.

The RSV vaccine needs to be next.

Too late for us but good for others

We paid for one, other dc had chicken pox

I would have paid for my children. Because
I caught it a second time as an early 40’s and I was 🤒. Was worse than covid.
Was told by GP that is was rare to catch again but was definitely chickenpox not shingles.
So if it saves the younger generation from catching it, I’m all for it.

I’m so pleased.

I had DD vaccinated privately quite late, she’d managed to get to 2 1/2 without catching it. I only knew there was a vaccine from reading about it on MN. There was a poor woman who lost her child to chicken pox.

everyone I spoke to thought I was mad for getting her vaccinated, even the GP, but this was over a decade ago. I got her vaccinated at the local hospital private travel vaccine clinic.

I feel vindicated.
I have my DC done privately at a travel clinic. I have taken a lot of criticism from friends re the wearing off and shingles risk. Now the UK government are finally catching up!
I intend to get them boosted at 18 if possible. Such a nasty disease, I have no idea why it's seen as a normal childhood illness.

Literally booked DD’s jab yesterday to get it privately. Doubt it’ll roll out in time to get her second dose on the NHS but nice to know I’m on the same page as the current science.

Dd paid for her 3 to have it. Health issues aside - not that I’m disregarding them at all - you can almost guarantee that kids will get it just before you’re due to go on holiday, or before some big occasion like a family wedding.

About time! This issue is already a rich-poor divide. The rich pay for their kids to be vaccinated privately while the poor (including those who are poorly educated and don’t know you can get vaccinated privately) catch the disease and suffer.

We had both our girls vaccinated privately the day they turned 1, with 2nd dose 18m I think. Chickenpox is not always a benign disease, plus it can last ages and we really had no ability to miss work for that. I'm very pleased we have now caught up with other countries and are going to vaccinate.
Adults can definitely be vaccinated. I think it's about £150 for the 2 jabs

We paid for ds to have it, a family member's child ended up in hospital with it, was incredibly poorly, pox inside her mouth and throat, febrile convulsions and eventually scarring. I'm glad the thinking is shifting, plenty of other countries have had it as part of the standard vaccination schedule for a long time.

My child has awful chickenpox. Needed a month off school and has 100+ scars that remain visible over a decade later.

I get upset when people refer to it as a mild childhood disease (although I do recognise that is the case for most) and would be delighted if vaccination is rolled out.

When we lived in the US and DCs were in school there we had to offer proof that they'd had chicken pox, as kids over there are routinely immunised and must be to attend public schools in many states.
The only 'proof' was their scars, which the school nurse accepted but only with a letter from the GP stating that a vaccination wasn't routine in the UK.

This was always in the pipeline, just delayed by Covid.
Practice nurse.

Me and a Ukrainian guy at work both have matching scars in the middle of our foreheads and since we often lunch together at work we get asked about how come we have matching scars.
The answer is ww both come from countries that didn’t vaccinate for chicken pox.
The scar changes the visual of my entire face and it’s frustrating that a simple vaccination could have changed it.
Agree with previous poster that even the time off work to take care of a sick child and then adding the discomfort for your kid of having the itchy spots, and the risk of life long scarring - I would have paid privately if I were in the uk.
I couldn’t have even sent my kids to nursery without proof of vaccination here (Europe)

Our GP told us he didn't see any need for the DC to have the chicken pox vaccine. I'm delighted I didn't listen.

@Bells3032 "get it for boys not girls" doesn't make sense.

If the vaccine doesn't give lifelong immunity, we should give it to both boys and girls as infants. Then give girls a booster dose at age 15 or 18 or whatever, to bring them back up to full immunity so they don't catch chicken pox while pregnant.

(And possibly offer boys a booster dose at the same age so they don't have to suffer catching chicken pox as adults, but obviously they don't have the risk of complications in pregnancy to factor in)

Also, refusing to vaccinate a child froma disease now in case she one day gets pregnant and is at risk is ridiculous!!! Give her a booster at the point at which she want to be pregnant then!@!

I had dc vaccinated. Chicken pox can be very dangerous. There was a sad thread a few years ago on here by clutching at pearls

I was never convinced of the necessity for the CP vaccine until dc3 caught it. She was so unwell and the spots got infected. I am pretty certain that the fact that she was still bf'ing (2.5) kept her out of hospital as I wasn't managing to get anything else into her.

If in a moment of madness I had decided to have had another they would have been vaccinated, so this is good news.

This is very interesting. I have a friend in Germany with similar aged children, and when asking what his experience with the pox was, he was very confused, as they vaccinate. I looked into paying for the vaccine for DD2, but was a bit concerned about the whole getting it in later life if she didn;t keep up with the vaccines. A minor burden, but still not one I wanted to put on her by my own choice. If the NHS has a program of vaccination top ups, that should solve this issue though?

I have a question for the adults who have said they got vaccinated. Is it because you didn’t catch chickenpox as a child? Or to prevent reinfection as an adult? Does it stop shingles?

We live in Aus and all children are vaccinated there. Chicken pox is very rare and when kids do get it, it’s really mild.

Good. Already paid for my two kids.