An article in the Dominion Post by Ruth Hill looking at the New Zealand Government’s planned approach to a vaccination campaign to combat swine flu.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“New Zealand officials are waiting for a World Health Organisation decision next month before deciding whether to include a swine flu vaccine in next year’s seasonal flu jab.
“Meanwhile, Australia has ordered 21 million doses of a vaccine and will begin a mass vaccination programme next month of up to 4.3 million at-risk patients and health workers.
“Britain is due to start vaccinations from October of more than 13 million people with underlying health problems including asthma, diabetes, heart disease, renal disease and compromised immune systems.
“The mass vaccination plans have been criticised by some doctors. The Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases has called on the Australian Government to abandon its plan to use multi-dose vials bottles containing many doses of the vaccine.
“In a letter to Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Jim Bishop, the society’s president, Associate Professor Tom Gottlieb, said multi-dose vials carried some risk of transmitting infectious diseases, ‘resulting in considerable morbidity and mortality’.”