Ignore the sceptics: with this new vaccine, chickenpox could become a thing of the past | Wes Streeting

AAs every parent knows, there are few things more disruptive to family life than a child covered head to toe in itchy chickenpox spots. White nights. Constant application of calamine lotion. The rush to take time off work while your little one recovers.

That’s why the current expansion of the NHS child vaccination program will be such a relief for so many families. The new combined vaccine, free on the NHS, will protect young children in England against varicella (chickenpox), measles, mumps and rubella. Children will be offered the MMRV vaccine at the ages of 12 and 18 months, and GP practices in England are contacting families from today to arrange appointments. This will mean fewer days missed from nursery and school, fewer urgent calls to the GP and fewer parents having to miss work.

Research shows that half of children get chickenpox by the age of four and 90% by the age of 10. Although most cases resolve on their own, chickenpox costs families and the wider economy around £24 million a year in lost income and productivity. This new vaccine will help significantly reduce this burden.

But beyond the practical advantages, this deployment responds to something more serious. Chickenpox is often considered a mild childhood illness, but it can cause serious complications requiring hospitalization, including bacterial infections such as group A streptococcus, pneumonia, and encephalitis. Even in recent years, there have been cases where children on morphine have been hospitalized, while others have contracted pneumonia and joint infections – and even serious flesh-eating diseases.

The combined MMRV vaccine has been used safely for decades and is already part of routine immunization programs in several countries. The United States, Canada, Australia and Germany have all seen substantial decreases in chickenpox cases and hospitalizations since rolling out their programs. In the United States alone, the vaccine has prevented approximately 91 million cases of chickenpox over 25 years, as well as 238,000 hospitalizations and nearly 2,000 deaths.

The evidence is clear: vaccines work. They prevent millions of deaths worldwide every year. Diseases such as smallpox, polio and tetanus, which once killed or disabled millions of people, have disappeared over the past 50 years or are now very rarely seen.

In this Government’s 10-year health plan, we set out how we are helping parents raise the healthiest generation of children ever, by shifting the health service from disease to prevention and building public confidence in vaccination. In an age where misinformation spreads rapidly online, it is more important than ever that people can trust medical science, as well as the researchers, analysts and clinicians who track the evidence. In some countries, it is clear that access to vaccines and accurate information about them has been restricted, and ordinary citizens are paying the price.

Building trust is why I have so fiercely opposed rhetoric that ignores scientific evidence about the excellent safety profile and effectiveness of vaccines.

It is always okay for people to ask questions or want to know more about the importance of vaccines; that’s why we regularly ensure people have up-to-date information and have expert clinicians in the media to explain why they are safe.

But the doubt and misinformation sown even by politicians who should know better, like Nigel Farage and senior figures in the Reform Party, are harming public health. Worse still, they undermine the trust people have in our health services.

We are fortunate in Britain to have a health system built on clinical excellence and unrivaled research. The current vaccine rollout is based on decades of scientific evidence. By reducing serious cases and complications, the scheme is expected to save the NHS around £15 million a year in treatment costs. But more importantly, it will help protect thousands of children from serious illness.