NHS England is urging Islanders to attend regular vaccination appointments to prevent outbreaks of deadly serious diseases and reduce pressure on the health service.
While preventing the spread of COVID-19 is a public health priority, it is still vital that members of the public go to scheduled vaccination appointments to stop outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases and to protect vulnerable groups including children, babies and pregnant women.
As long as those getting attending appointments, including parents of babies or children, do not have symptoms or are not self-isolating because someone in the household is displaying symptoms, all scheduled vaccinations should go ahead as normal.
Dr Nisha Jayatilleke, Screening & Immunisations Lead, South East, at NHS England and Improvement said:
“Vaccines are an absolutely essential building block of good health, so if you or any member of your household are not displaying symptoms of coronavirus and are not self-isolating, vaccinations should happen as normal.
“While the NHS is taking measures to protect people from coronavirus, local services are working hard to ensure that people including babies, children and pregnant women still receive their routine vaccinations – they provide essential protection against potentially life-threatening diseases.”
The national immunisation programme is highly successful in reducing the number of serious and sometimes life-threatening diseases such as whooping cough, diphtheria and measles. It is important to maintain the best possible vaccine uptake to prevent a resurgence of these infections, which would put unnecessary added pressure on the NHS.
When attending appointments, people should follow government guidance and ensure they are two metres apart from anyone outside their household and minimise time spent outside.
If a patient or a member of their household develops coronavirus symptoms, they should follow government guidance and reschedule their appointment.
Dr Mary Ramsay, Head of Immunisations at Public Health England, said:
“The national immunisation programme is highly successful in preventing serious and sometimes life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, meningitis, whooping cough, diphtheria and measles.
“During this time, it is important to maintain the best possible vaccine uptake to prevent a resurgence of these infections.”
If individuals or members of a household need advice from a GP practice about symptoms not related to coronavirus, they should contact the practice online or by phone to be assessed. Parents are advised to do this if their children have symptoms of scarlet fever as we reach the peak season between late March and mid-April. Symptoms of this include a rash, sore throat, headache and fever.
Scarlet fever mainly infects children and is most common between the ages of 2 and 8 years. It was once a very dangerous infection but has now become much less serious, with antibiotic treatment now available to minimise the risk of complications, however there is currently no vaccine.
So, after generations there is no vaccine yet discovered for Scarlet Fever, yet everyone expects one for CV?
This could be with us for years yet.
Perhaps it is better to catch it early before we get ever older and more vulnerable as more and more other afflictions and ailments beset us all.
Maybe the young are right to mingle for their own sakes, but not helping those older in our society.
many years ago, parents had chicken pox parties – where they threw all their kids together to play, if one had already caught it – they suffered for a couple of weeks and then had immunity.
a bit of pain for long term gain.
might seem odd nowadays, but it worked – herd immunity is the only real, true lasting defence in the long term, as a vaccine generally lasts about 10 years.
hiding away indoors is a foolish strategy if you are under 70, have no health conditions and are not obese – get out, face it, get over it and get on with your life.
crossing the road to get to the other side has a risk of being run over – doesn’t stop people crossing the road, so why hide
away indoors in case you might get a virus.
Scientists don’t know how immunity works yet. Lots more research to be done. Tortoise and the hare!
and we are not scientists experiments or guinea pigs.
stop being so scared of your own shadow – the world will collapse before enough data is available to provide an accurate and truthful narrative on this virus origins – at the moment it is knee jerk reactions by politicians worried about their own careers.
if everyone stays under lockdown for too long, then it will only be a matter of time before rioting starts — as sure as night follows day.
Yes, what use will be a vaccine if immunity doesn’t last long? Not heard much about the case in South Korea where someone caught the virus, got over it, then caught it again and died from it the second time they caught it.
bit like the flu then and other viruses. Each year there is a flu shot – not guaranteed to work, not guaranteed to be the right vaccine and countless people die – look at the stats..
COVID-19: Approximately 238,950 deaths reported worldwide;, as of May 2, 2020.*
Flu: 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide each year.
…….
Flu has been around for as long as anyone can remember, yet, as you can see – well over half a million die each year, despite countless flu vaccines and countless generations building up immunity and passing it on. – that is 1769 per day, every day of the year.
no lockdown for flu and there is no total immunity either, as it changes through a process known as antigenic drift.
ahh but thems ooo no’s says this baint the flue an it be ten times easy to catch an all.
will take pleny of us away that be a fact
Well said
No way is myself or my family getting this vaccine!!! Your a fool if you do! Not falling for all this shit. People need to wake up and smell the shit for what it really is!!
well said mrs brown – neither am i –
a rushed, half arsed concoction shoved into you, that may or may not work and may give you side effects – sod that.
I for one won’t be getting this so called vaccine. This whole thing is just lies, lies and more lies.