New Vaccine for Children

Three year old Rio Poole from Bristol has been struck down with rotavirus not once but twice. He's not alone. Almost every child in Britain will have had the viral infection by the age of five. It's the most common cause of gastroenteritis in infants and very young children.

From September next year, infants aged between two and four months will be immunised against rotavirus - which causes diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever and dehydration.

The number of cases of a highly infectious vomiting bug which affects children under five, are up by a third on last year.

The rise in cases of rotavirus is believed to be related to the early cold snap. But children in the West Country will soon benefit from a new vaccination programme that's been announced by the department of health. Daisy Gray reports.