Child flu vaccine

The flu vaccine helps protect your child against flu and reduces the chance of them spreading the virus to others.


The vaccine doesn’t cause flu.

Who's being offered the vaccine?

The flu vaccine's offered to all:

children in Scotland aged 2-5 years (and not yet in school) at their GP practice (children must be aged 2 years or above on 1 September 2019 to be eligible)
primary school children at school
Children in secondary school aren't currently included in the programme. However, children of all ages with a health condition will still be offered the flu vaccine from 6 months of age.
Why get your child immunised

Flu's very infectious and can be serious. Flu can lead to complications that may result in hospitalisation or even death.

Even healthy children can become seriously ill from flu and can spread it to family, friends and others. Every year in Scotland, children are hospitalised for the treatment of flu or its complications.

In some cases flu can lead to complications. These can include:

bronchitis
pneumonia
painful middle ear infection
vomiting

For children with health conditions getting flu can be even more serious. Health conditions that make children more vulnerable include:

• asthma
• bronchitis
• heart disease
• kidney disease
• liver disease
• morbid obesity (defined as BMI of 40 and above)
• neurological disease
• diabetes
• immunosuppression
• no fully working spleen