Covid-19: Somerset family desperate for daughter to get jab

Nenna is still waiting for her Covid vaccination

The parents of a 12-year-old with a rare genetic disease say her health is being put at risk due to delays over receiving a Covid-19 vaccination.

Nenna from Somerset is among a group of extremely clinically vulnerable children who the government said would be eligible for the jab.

She has the mental age of a five-year-old and has lost the ability to walk.

Health bosses said they were working on organising vaccinations for children like Nenna later this month.

She is thought to be the only child in the country with a faulty gene known as CTBP1 and her condition has deteriorated in recent years.

Nenna, with father Paul, is expected to live only a few more years and Covid-19 risks shortening her life further

In July the government announced 12-17 year-olds who were immune suppressed would be immunised against Covid-19.

"It just felt like the light at the end of the tunnel," Nenna's mother Cheryl said.

"Lockdown has been really hard. She doesn't understand. Every day we're making the decision 'do we send her to school, do we let her go out'.

"It just seems cruel that her peers in surrounding counties have had it. Somebody needs to step up and take responsibility so my child can have an ordinary life."

NHS Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said it understood it was a "very anxious time for parents of vulnerable children and families".

A spokesman said that the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recently updated guidance to recommend that vulnerable children are offered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but that the CCG was waiting for final guidance.

"We plan to start vaccinating later in August and we will be offering all of these vulnerable eligible children and young people the vaccination as soon as possible," he added.