Jab for chickenpox will be offered to children in Wales

ALL young children in Wales and England will be offered a free chickenpox vaccine by the NHS from next January, it has been announced.

- BRYANA FRANCIS & ELLIE GOSLEY

The chickenpox vaccine - also known as the varicella jab - will form part of a new combined MMRV (measles, mumps, rubella and varicella) vaccine.

The MMRV vaccine, which will eventually replace the MMR vaccine, will be offered to children in two doses, at 12 and 18 months.

For slightly older children who will have missed the vaccine, there will be a temporary catch-up programme but full details about this are yet to be announced.

Until now, if parents wanted to protect their children against the virus which causes red and itchy spots, they had to pay up to £200 to get the jab at a private clinic or pharmacy.

It doesn’t guarantee lifetime immunity, but the chance of someone developing the disease, or having a bad case of it, are said to be thoroughly reduced.

Chickenpox is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by the varicella zoster virus.

Most cases are fairly mild, but some children can develop complications which in the most serious of cases can lead to hospitalisation or even death.

In Wales, more than 300 people are admitted to hospital with chickenpox each year, and 4,000 go to their GP with symptoms.