SWINE flu vaccines tested on children in Oxford had mostly minor side effects and should provide good protection against the illness, research has shown.
About 900 children were recruited for the vaccine trial in centres across the UK, including Oxford, for a study by the Health Protection Agency and universities of Bristol, Southampton, Exeter and St George's in London.
Two types of vaccine were used in the study, one containing an emulsion to boost immunity and one without.
About 98 per cent of children under three responded well to the version with the booster, and 80 per cent to the other.
For children over three, there was a 99 per cent response to the booster vaccine and 95 per cent to the second version of the drug.
Dr Matthew Snape, from the Oxford Vaccine Group at Oxford University, said: “Children were a high priority for immunisation in the swine flu pandemic.
“We showed that two doses of both vaccines generated good immune responses, with significantly higher antibody levels seen after immunisation with the most commonly used vaccine.
“Most children receiving either vaccine had no more than minor reactions, and this study provides reassuring evidence that both vaccines were well tolerated and likely to provide good protection against swine flu.”
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