MORE THAN 1,500 people received the swine flu vaccine at special clinics set up by the Health Service Executive yesterday as it officially began its national pandemic flu vaccination campaign.
The vaccine is also available from more than 2,000 GPs but figures on the total numbers who have received the vaccine at family doctors’ surgeries are not yet available.
The Irish Medicines Board said six adverse reactions to the new vaccine had been reported to it by 3pm but its medical director, Dr Joan Gilvarry, said these were expected and were things like soreness at the injection site or fever, events that would normally pass within 24 to 48 hours.
As the vaccination campaign began some GPs complained they still had not received supplies of vaccine or that their stocks had already nearly run out and would not be replenished for a fortnight. Dr Brenda Corcoran of the HSE national immunisation office said 240,000 doses of vaccine had been dispatched to GPs. She acknowledged there had been some “glitches” and extra delivery vans were on the road. There were provisions for “emergency” deliveries to be made to GPs, she said.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said the pandemic was serious but cautioned against panic. “Clearly it is serious. Of those that are admitted to hospital, the 1 per cent of patients that have been admitted to hospital, a high percentage of them get admitted to intensive care,” she said.
“But we don’t want any panic. We want to be sensible here. 100,000 people in Ireland have had the swine flu, we understand . . . 10 people have died so we must put it in proportion, but we want to encourage people to be vigilant and to get the vaccine that’s now available in accordance with the instructions given by the experts,” she said.
She confirmed she would avail of the vaccine in due course. “I will when it’s appropriate but clearly currently I’m not an at-risk patient so it would be very irresponsible of me to go ahead of somebody that is at-risk. But in time I would hope to get the vaccine like the rest of the population.”
The at-risk patients now being prioritised for vaccination are those aged six months to 65 years with chronic heart, lung, kidney and liver disease, diabetes, neurological conditions like MS, the morbidly obese as well as women more than 14-weeks pregnant and up to six weeks after giving birth.
Dr Pat Doorley, HSE national director of population health, appealed to those not in these at-risk groups not to present for vaccination now. Everyone would be vaccinated in time, but given there were limited supplies of vaccine at present at-risk patients had to be prioritised, he said.
He added that at-risk patients should go to their GP if their GP was taking part in the swine flu vaccination programme. If their GP was not they could attend a HSE vaccination clinic.
If HSE clinics turned out not to be busy and had extra vaccine they may be asked to begin vaccinating healthcare workers and children. It would depend on uptake of the vaccine among at-risk patients, of whom there are between 400,000 and 500,000 in the State.
The HSE said by 4pm some 569 patients had attended its special swine flu clinics in the Dublin/northeast region; 504 had attended its clinics in the south; 307 in Dublin/mid-Leinster and 197 in the west.
More than 3,500 more patients have booked appointments to get the vaccine at these clinics in coming days. Appointments can be made online at www.swineflu.ie. “Walk in” patients will also be accommodated.
While a number of GPs continued to raise concerns about whether or not they would have insurance cover if they didn’t contact all their at-risk patients, Dr Doorley insisted GPs were only expected to do their best. He said the onus was on at-risk patients to come forward for the vaccine.
Ms Harney appealed, meanwhile, to healthcare staff not to let grievances they had with the Government in relation to pay and conditions to jeopardise the care given to swine flu patients.