A couple whose 3-year-old daughter died of swine flu over Christmas are campaigning for the Government to rethink its policy not to vaccinate children deemed not at risk, as Katie Razzall reports.
The couple, Gemma Ameen and her husband Zana, want to make sure that no more children die in the same way as their daughter, Lana. They switched off her life support on Boxing Day, just two days after she seemed to catch a cold.
The couple, a nurse and a doctor, initially took their daughter to hospital in Stockport, where she was diagnosed with an infection and sent home. Later, after suffering multiple fits, she was taken back to hospital. She was eventually transferred to Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, but died on Boxing Day.
Rather than taking facts and figures, they need to start thinking about people’s lives. Gemma Ameen, whose daughter Lana died of swine flu
Mrs Ameen, who is 12 weeks pregnant, has issued a photograph of her daughter in intensive care in a bid to change Government policy over who is eligible for the seasonal flu vaccine which fights the H1N1 virus.
At the moment, children who do not have any other “risk factors” are not eligible. Mrs Ameen and her husband both had the vaccine, and tried to get it for Lana from their GP, but were told she was not included in the at risk group.
The Department of Health said independent advice was “absolutely clear” that the best option was only immunising at-risk groups. The advice had been recently reviewed and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation had not changed its recomendation, it added.
Mrs Ameen, 28, said: “It’s heartless really. It definitely needs looking at again with another review. Rather than just taking facts and figures, they need to start thinking about people’s lives.
Your questions on the flu vaccine answered
“It’s not about whether they thought Lana should have been eligible. Obviously she was because she died from it. I think all children should be vaccinated and anyone else who is prepared to pay for it.”
She has now set up the website Lana’s Cause with the objective “to make the swine flu vaccine available to everybody”.
Mrs Ameen said that Government policy was “clearly excluding a large amount of the public from being protected from this virus” and that “prevention is better than cure”.
“This is something we will not be giving up on and we feel that the amount of deaths that have already occurred should be enough to confirm our drive behind this cause,” she added.