Flu expert wants child vaccination next winter

Professor John Oxford criticised the handling of this year's flu outbreak, claiming it led to "muddled" policies including failing to immunise healthy children outside at-risk groups.

He said the UK should follow the US and Canada in routinely vaccinating under-fives.

The Government resisted calls to vaccinate healthy young children against flu this year, saying guidance from scientists states there is already a good deal of immunity in this age group.

Experts at the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) also point to evidence suggesting youngsters are frequently suffering from respiratory illnesses other than flu.

Healthy under-fives were vaccinated last year against swine flu – the same dominant strain that is circulating this year.

Speaking after he received an honorary doctorate of science from Kingston University in south-west London, Prof Oxford said he had been moved by an appeal from the parents of three-year-old Lana Ameen who died of flu.

Gemma Ameen and her husband Zana switched off life support to their daughter two days after she apparently caught a cold on Christmas Eve.

Prof Oxford, who is also professor of virology at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, said of the parents: "Although it was too late for their own child, they found the strength to say that other people's children should be vaccinated so that they did not suffer in the way that their daughter did.

"We don't want a repeat of this next year. Other countries like Canada and the United States have vaccinated their children and we should do the same."

He said it was too late to vaccinate under-fives this year.

"However I would be surprised and disappointed if the Government did not decide to vaccinate the under-fives next year."

Prof Oxford said this year marked the third wave of a swine flu outbreak that was likely to continue for at least another year or two.

And it was hitting people aged under 65 the hardest, with high rates in younger age groups, he said.

"Swine flu is reaching the parts that other flu viruses don't, it goes deeper, and that's why we have so many people in hospital with their lungs clogged up," he added.