Swine flu update – priority groups for vaccine
The Department of Health website has an excellent section about swine flu, including weekly updates. This provides news on policy changes as the epidemic progresses. The latest update (13th August) includes advice on which groups are a priority for the vaccines, which covers almost 11 million people. This does not include healthy over 65’s who seem to have natural immunity to this strain of the virus.
“The following groups will be prioritised in this order (numbers given are approximate and are for England only):
- People aged over six months and under 65 years in current seasonal flu vaccine clinical at-risk groups (about 5 million people).
- All pregnant women, subject to licensing conditions on trimesters (about 0.5 million people).
- Household contacts of people with compromised immune systems e.g. people in regular close contact with patients on treatment for cancer (about 0.5 million people).
- People aged 65 and over in the current seasonal flu vaccine clinical at-risk groups (about 3.5 million people). This does not include otherwise healthy over 65s, since they appear to have some natural immunity to the virus.”
Read the full swine flu update from the DoH
Also see the excellent page of advice about swine flue to social care providers from the cqc
