The European Medicine Agency have announced that the flu vaccine,  Pandemrix given to millions of Britons as recently as a few months ago will no longer be used on the under-20s (unless they are at risk of contracting swine flu).

Recent studies showed that young people who were given the vaccine were at increased risk of developing narcolepsy (causing sufferers to fall asleep unexpectedly).

Despite this, Britain’s drug watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said the recommendations were not binding and that Pandemrix would not be restricted in this country.

Pandemrix, manufactured by the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, was given to 30million people across Europe after the outbreak of swine flu.  Within a year of it launching the vaccine health officials in Finland claimed it had been linked to narcolepsy.

In total 335 cases of the sleeping disorder in people vaccinated with Pandemrix have been reported to GSK.  The European watchdog suggested a six to 13-fold increased risk of narcolepsy among vaccinated children.

However The European Medicine Agency added that a similar risk has not been confirmed in other countries, and the vaccine is likely to have interacted with “genetic or environmental factors” such as local infections in Scandinavia that might have raised the risk.