Jersey will follow the UK’s lead and introduce free chickenpox vaccines for children, the island’s government has announced.
The vaccine is currently available privately on both Jersey and Guernsey, but Jersey will add it to the current routine childhood vaccination programme – giving a combined measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) and chickenpox vaccine.
Peter Bradley, the island’s director of public health, said the new programme would start in January.
However, Guernsey’s government is still undecided on whether to adopt a similar approach. The island’s health chief said she was “supportive” in principal but there were “lots of competing priorities” for funding.
Dr Nikki Brink, Guernsey’s director of public health, added her department had put in an application for the vaccine in the 2026 budget but “we need to wait and see whether we get funding for it”.
She said, if introduced, the programme would focus on the “prevention of severe disease and complications”.