New rotavirus vaccination programme announced

The Department of Health is launching a new vaccination programme next year that will help to protect UK children against rotavirus infection.

Planned to commence in September 2013, the scheme will see infants under the age of four months immunised against the highly infectious bug, which causes around 140,000 diarrhoea cases a year in under-fives.

It is thought that this will cut the number of vomiting and diarrhoea cases caused by rotavirus by half, while also reducing the number of associated hospital stays by 70 percent.

Similar rotavirus vaccination programmes have proven successful in the US, with the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation having concluded that this initiative will be cost-effective and beneficial.

Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies said: "Rotavirus is the most common cause of diarrhoea in young children and this vaccine will protect our children and reduce hospital admissions for serious rotavirus infection."

The vaccine used will be Rotarix, a GlaxoSmithKline product that was selected for use in a Ghanaian immunisation project earlier this year.