Pensioners to be vaccinated against shingles

Britain’s major expansion of immunisation will include giving pensioners vaccines against shingles.

10:11 01 May 2013

After facing criticism for the measles outbreak that affected a lot of people, British government has taken steps to ensure that opposite ends of the age scale (babies and pensioners), will receive vaccinations to fight certain diseases.

People who are over 70 years old will be vaccinated against shingles, a contagious, painful rash caused by chickenpox virus. The mass immunisation programme is expected to lessen hospital admissions and deaths every year.

Meanwhile, around 650,000 toddlers will also receive flu vaccinations via nasal spray starting this year. School children will start to get the spray from 2015. Babies who are under four months old will also be given vaccination against rotavirus. This is expected to lessen the number of babies being hospitalised due to this virus by up to 14,000 per year.

It can be remembered that there was an outbreak that started in Wales last couple of weeks. This is because several school children did not receive the vaccination when they were younger. Their parents were put off by the MMR scare that was falsely linked the jab protecting against measles to autism.