A HIGH street chain has become the first retailer to offer a vaccine for a common childhood illness that is usually harmless.

Superdrug is offering a jab for chickenpox, which affects around eight million children aged one to ten in the UK a year.

Evidence suggest more parents are opting to have their children vaccinated privately.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said it had also taken a number of inquiries from parents.

Chickenpox is not harmful for the majority of children but can be more risky for those with weakened immune systems, as a result of chemotherapy.

The vaccine is currently only available on the NHS for those who are at high risk of spreading the virus to particularly vulnerable people.

An immunisation against chickenpox has routinely been offered to children under the age of 13 in the US for more than 20 years.

Some health experts say introducing a vaccination programme would mean the infection would no longer circulate in areas where the majority of children had been vaccinated.

This would leave unvaccinated children susceptible to contracting chickenpox as adults, when they are more likely to develop a more severe infection.

The Superdrug vaccine costs £65 per dose, and two doses - four to eight weeks apart - are recommended to give heightened immune protection.

Once you have chickenpox, you should be immune to it for life, however one in three who have had chickenpox will go on to develop shingles later in life.

If you haven’t suffered from chickenpox as a child, it is still possible to contract it as an adult.

Chickenpox tends to be more severe in adults with increased risk of pneumonia, hepatitis and encephalitis.

A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: "We have had a small number of enquiries on accessing chicken pox vaccine but we do not know if parents are seeking to obtain the vaccine privately."