Young children respond well to recommended swine flu vaccine

Children responded well to the two swine flu vaccines used in the UK during last year's pandemic, a UK-wide study led by Oxford University has found. The study results, published in the British Medical Journal today, helped inform decisions made by the UK Department of Health on vaccination strategies for protecting children against swine flu. 'Children were a high priority for immunisation in the swine flu pandemic, and therefore last autumn we set out to study how well children responded to the two H1N1 influenza vaccines available in the UK,' says Dr Matthew Snape of the Oxford Vaccine Group. During the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic, children experienced infections at four times the rate of adults and were more commonly admitted to hospital, making them a priority group for vaccination. The team of UK researchers, led by the Oxford Vaccine Group, compared how children aged 6 months to 12 years responded to the two H1N1 vaccines purchased by the Department of Health for the national immunisation programme. The aim was to gain important information about their most effective use in children, helping inform the scientific community, policy makers and parents. Over 900 children participated in the study at five centres across the UK - Oxford, Southampton, Bristol, Exeter and St George's in South London - between September and December last year.