FAMILY DOCTORS will be advised this week to save remaining limited stocks of seasonal flu vaccine for two patient groups – pregnant women and at-risk children.
The advice, to be sent to all GPs by the Health Service Executive, will also say they should give leftover supplies of last year’s pandemic or swine flu vaccine to all other at-risk groups seeking vaccination which would include those over 65 years and adults with chronic heart, lung or kidney disease, as well as their carers.
GPs will each be sent about 500 doses of last year’s swine flu vaccine, known as Pandemrix, for use on those patients.
Doctors will also be advised that those at-risk patients who are given the Pandemrix vaccine should be recalled in a few weeks to get the seasonal flu vaccine when stocks are replenished as it provides protection against two other strains of flu currently in circulation in addition to swine flu. Pandemrix only protects against swine flu.
The HSE confirmed on Friday it had ordered an extra 100,000 doses of the seasonal flu vaccine.
Meanwhile parents have been urged not to send their children back to school today if they have symptoms of flu as they risk spreading it. Any student with flu should stay at home for seven days from when symptoms began.
The advice, issued by health officials through the Department of Education, also stresses the importance of regular hand washing, not sharing wind instruments or pencils, and covering the mouth with a tissue when coughing or sneezing.
Teachers have been advised to keep an eye out for students with symptoms of flu and arrange for them to go home as soon as possible. Symptoms of flu, which has a sudden onset, include a temperature of over 38 degrees and some of the following: dry cough, sore throat, muscle aches and pains, headache, runny nose, severe weakness and fatigue, and vomiting/diarrhoea.
Most people infected have a mild to moderate illness, but some have more severe illness.
In the past week rates of infection with swine flu have doubled and are expected to continue increasing for the next two to four weeks before levelling off.
There are 26 patients being treated for flu in intensive care units at present.
About 89 per cent of flu cases this season are swine flu, and about 11 per cent are caused by influenza B, which is milder.
Some 50 deaths from flu have been reported in the UK so far this season. A further 13 have been reported in the North. There have been no confirmed deaths from flu in the Republic to date this season.
Dr Mel Bates, spokesman for the Irish College of General Practitioners, said he had heard isolated reports of a lack of flu vaccine but he did not think it had been a major issue. He said his practice had a surge of pregnant women looking for the vaccine after an outbreak of swine flu at the Rotunda hospital before Christmas.
Some GP surgeries in the UK had to turn away people looking for flu vaccines in the past week after supplies ran out.
All those in at-risk groups are urged to get vaccinated.