Annual flu scheme could safeguard the elderly

Could vaccinating toddlers every year with a flu jab be the answer to safeguarding older people from influenza? A report from the Health Protection Agency believes that giving an annual flu jab to children under the age of five could prevent flu spreading throughout the rest of the population every winter.

It's thought that children's weaker immune systems and the fact that they regularly come into contact with their grandparents means that they are one of the key factors in spreading a flu virus when it happens.

However, while the idea of flu jabs for kids might make medical sense, it's thought that parental resistance would stop the idea taking practical form. ' I would say parents in the UK would probably turn around and give it a thumbs down, so the JCVI [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation] will want to be 100% sure of the evidence,' Professor John Oxford, an expert in virology at Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry told the BBC.

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