{"id":670076,"date":"2026-01-03T00:39:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T00:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670076\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T00:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T00:39:16","slug":"south-west-children-offered-free-nhs-chickenpox-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670076\/","title":{"rendered":"South West children offered free NHS chickenpox vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A catch-up campaign has been planned for slightly older children so they did not miss out, it added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Until now, parents who wanted to protect their child against the chickenpox varicella virus have usually had to pay up to \u00a3200 privately.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Being able to provide protection for children against chickenpox for the first time on the NHS is truly a historic moment,&#8221; said Dr Trevor Smith, from NHS England South West.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This will help us keep our children healthier, enabling them to stay in school and supporting the wider NHS goal of moving from sickness to prevention.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/childhood-varicella-vaccination-programme-jcvi-advice-14-november-2023\/jcvi-statement-on-a-childhood-varicella-chickenpox-vaccination-programme\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">latest data, external<\/a> shows half of children will contract chickenpox by the age of four, and 90% by the age of 10.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They are often told to stay off school until all spots have formed a scab, which is usually five days after the spots first appear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The NHS said the new vaccine would mean children miss fewer days in nursery or school, and reduce time parents need to take off work to care for them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It added that local GP surgeries would begin contacting families to help them book appointments to receive the jab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A catch-up campaign has been planned for slightly older children so they did not miss out, it added.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[105,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-670076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115828383079285282","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}