As the country’s death toll rose by seven, to a total of 21, health authorities announced that vaccinations of children aged between six and five years could begin within weeks.

The said official statistics revealed one to four-year-olds had been hardest hit by the disease, but parents are split on whether they would vaccinate their children.

The National Public Health Service (NPHS) for Wales has sought to reinforce the pro-vaccination message, saying that the vaccine was the most effective tool to combat swine flu, which could be very serious in a small number of people.

A spokesman for the NHPS has urged that people to take the vaccine in all cases where it was being offered.

However Sarah Matthews, a 35 year-old mother of three-year-old twin boys from Cilfew, close to Neath, wasn’t convinced, saying that it seemed to be like the introduction of the vaccine was rushed, and that no real tests have been done on it.

But Leighton Jones of Glyncorrwg, near Port Talbot, whose 17-month son Alfie was vaccinated two weeks ago, said that the specialists did tell inform her that they didn’t know about the after-effects, but it was fine.

Work on the vaccine has progressed quickly, as drug companies had begun working on a vaccination as soon as the pandemic began to spread across the globe earlier this year.

Initial trials of the vaccine began in Australia in July and up to 1,000 children in the UK were involved in a two-week trial in September to establish which of the two vaccines worked better.

Director of the communicable disease surveillance centre at the NPHS for Wales, Dr Roland Salmon, said that the vaccine against swine flu had been tested and approved, and is now being offered to people most at risk of complications from the virus, as well as frontline health and social care workers.

She announced that 260,000 children aged six months to five years would be offered the jab, with infection rates reportedly high in the age group.

The announcement follows the death of an adult NHS Lothian patient who died from the disease, bringing the Scottish death toll to 39.

The patient is believed to have had underlying health concerns.

It is anticipated that children will be invited to their local GP practice to receive the vaccination, and the programme would last through December and into January, once the initial priority grops have been vaccinated.

Ms Sturgeon said that the decision had been made in line with independent scientific advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

She went on to say that it was their advice which had guided her in all te decisions made around the vaccination programme.

Current advice from the JCVI is that young children are more at risk of contracting the virus and the highest rate of hospitalisations have been in the under-five age grous.

She added however that the vast majority of young children in common with the rest of the population, have mild symptoms and they would recover relatively quickly, but wanted to ensure that young children are fully protected against the virus.

The strategy was confirmed by Ms Sturgeon while she presented the latest figures from Health Protection Scotland on swine flu.