THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) has begun training extra nurses to prepare for the implementation of a swine flu vaccination programme later this year.
Dr Pat Doorley, national director of population health with the HSE, said yesterday some nurses were already trained to administer the MMR vaccine, but additional nurses were now being trained up to administer the pandemic vaccine. It is anticipated that the vaccination programme will begin in October.
However, while the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) has arranged training for many of its pharmacists, Dr Doorley said the HSE has had no discussions with pharmacists on administering the vaccine on its behalf to patients.
The union’s president, Liz Hoctor, said that it made sense to prepare pharmacists to administer the vaccine as there would be intense pressure to deliver it as soon as it arrived in Ireland.
The union expects to arrange accredited training for up to 500 pharmacists, which Ms Hoctor said will allow pharmacists to administer seasonal and pandemic flu vaccines and travel vaccinations.
The pandemic vaccine has yet to clear licensing hurdles and safety checks before it can be administered to patients.
Swine flu vaccines are unlikely to be ready before October, the new head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday.
And imperfect tests for the pandemic H1N1 virus means it will be impossible to get precise numbers on how many people are infected, said Dr Thomas Frieden.
It was unlikely vaccines against H1N1 could get out to the public sooner than mid-October, when mass vaccination is scheduled to start. “We wish we had new vaccine technology that would allow us to turn on a dime and make new vaccine in terms of weeks or months. Its not possible with todays technology to do that,” he said.
It will first be given to healthcare workers and patients in at-risk groups, but less than half of healthcare workers in Hong Kong are willing to be vaccinated for swine flu, mainly due to concern about its possible side-effects, research published yesterday in the British Medical Journalshows.
This is despite assurances from the World Health Organisation that regulatory procedures in place for the licensing of pandemic vaccines, including procedures for expediting regulatory approval, are rigorous and do not compromise safety or quality controls.
Meanwhile, a Mayo GP has called for churches and nightclubs to be closed for a number of weeks to prevent the spread of swine flu.
Dr Paul Nolan, a family doctor in Lahardane, a village near Ballina, made his comments after treating a number of footballers for the pandemic H1N1 virus. – (Additional reporting: Reuters)