Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits on including yellow fever in the list of vaccines under the Vaccine Damage Payment Act 1979 for which compensation may be paid.

The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) is not a compensation scheme. There is no assessment of what losses were actually suffered. It provides a one off tax-free lump sum payment, currently £120,000, to successful claimants and is one part of the wide range of support and help available to severely disabled people in the United Kingdom.

The VDPS is primarily designed to cover adverse reactions for vaccination in the child immunisation programme which is a Government initiative to protect the community from infectious disease and does not include travel vaccines.

The Scheme is being kept under review if further inclusions are thought necessary.