ACCRINGTON schoolgirl Olivia Diamond missed out on a life-saving vaccination by less than two weeks, it has emerged.

The 12-year-old, who lived with her family in Moss Hall Road, died of acute myocarditis on Thursday, October 9, four days after falling ill with the flu.

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The condition, which varies in severity, causes heart muscles to inflame and is usually caused by a virus.

It was yesterday revealed that Olivia was potentially just 12 days away from being given a nasal spray vaccination as part of a county-wide pilot scheme to vaccinate Year Seven and Eight aged children.

Health professionals will visit Olivia’s former school, Accrington Academy, to offer the vaccines in two weeks after the Department of Health decided to extend the national flu programme.

The visit has been planned for a while and is not in response to Olivia’s death, the school said.

Principal Andy O’Brien said: “The project was started in conjunction with NHS Lancashire six weeks ago and the students will be getting the vaccinations next week.”

Outside of several pilot areas offering the vaccines to 11 and 12-year-olds, they are only currently offered to young children, the elderly, and those with long term health problems.

All children from the age of two to 17 will be offered vaccinations in the future, the government said, with the extension to the flu programme being phased in, although the timescale depends on how efficient the pilot is.

Olivia’s distraught mum Angela said: “If Olivia had a flu vaccine, she would not have died. The message I want to get out is that every child needs that vaccine whether they meet criteria or not. Olivia is the prime example of this.”

Angela said she plans to ‘go down every route available’ in her fight to see free widespread vaccinations introduced as quickly as possible.

Oswaldtwistle councillor Peter Britcliffe said: “It’s so sad, and it’s tragic to think Olivia just missed the opportunity the school was providing with flu vaccinations.

“I’m sure there will be many heartbroken people over this.”

Hyndburn and Haslingden MP Graham Jones said he would be ‘delighted’ to take up Angela’s case, but said he recognised that immunisations worried some parents.