The government has been advised to make the jab available to all children, so parents want to know if the chickenpox vaccine is available on the NHS.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has recommended that the chickenpox vaccine should be introduced as part of the routine childhood immunisation schedule. With the Covid pandemic leading to a restriction on social mixing, fewer children were exposed to chickenpox, leaving a larger pool susceptible to the infection. A free vaccine could mean there's no need for kids to come into contact with the infection through their peers - gone would be the days of parents taking their kids to 'chickenpox parties' in the hope their child would catch it early, and we'd no longer need to worry about when chickenpox is contagious.
