This is a good change.

Although on the other hand, our possible next PM came out with some anti-vaccine bollocks recently, so I’m not sure how long sensible vaccination strategies will be in place for.

I’m also not sure how many Reform-brained people will end up not vaccinating their kids and end up compromising herd immunity for the rest of us.

The changes include routine protection against chickenpox through the combined MMRV vaccine, the removal of the Hib/MenC vaccine (which helps protect against two of the causes of meningitis and blood poisoning) from the one-year appointment, and a new vaccination visit at 18 months – bringing forward the MMRV vaccine, and adding a different Hib containing vaccine.

I’m curious about the impact of the addition of varicella vaccine on the older population. My understanding was that part of the reason we didn’t vaccinate for varicella was because exposure to chickenpox later in life through children helped to boost the natural immunity in adults to last into old age.