Swine flu vaccines tested and safe, insists HSE

THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) and the Department of Health yesterday reiterated that the swine flu vaccines being used here had been tried and licensed and were fully safe.

Posters and leaflets claiming the vaccines were not properly trialled before the national vaccination programme commenced have been distributed in Dublin over the last few days, prompting some to question their safety.

“HSE needs 4 million (Irish) human guinea pigs to test new (barely) tested H1N1 swine flu vaccine jab,” one leaflet distributed on the Luas stated.

However, a spokeswoman for the HSE said there should be no question about the safety of the Pandemrix and Celvapan vaccines, which are being used here.

“The vaccines were approved by the Irish Medicines Board, the National Immunisation Advisory Committee and the European Medicines Agency,” she said.

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer at the Department of Health, said that clinical trials had found the vaccine to be safe and that he was confident this was the case.

He said the amount of vaccine supplied was one of the vaccination programme’s “pinch points” at present, but he expects there to be significant amounts of it available from early December.

“We would hope that the great majority of people will be vaccinated this side of Christmas. The speed at which we get through the groups depends on uptake and we hope we would like to see as high an uptake as possible.”

Dr Holohan told RTÉ News at One that children aged under five were now beginning to be vaccinated and that others would be invited to HSE vaccination clinics by way of letter in the near future.

He said he hoped people aged over 65 would start to receive the vaccine during the week beginning November 23rd and that school children would then follow.

“We’ll be going into the schools at that stage and we’re in discussion through the HSE with the Department of Education to put in place the arrangements.”

Following the death of a pregnant woman from swine flu, Dr Holohan said it was important that all women who are more than 14 weeks pregnant be vaccinated.

“Normally people who are pregnant wouldn’t be vaccinated, so I understand that gives rise to concerns on the part of some health professionals, but really all the data about these vaccines gives us significant reassurance that both vaccines are equally safe.”

Dr Holohan said those who contract the virus while pregnant have four times the increased risk of complications and that about 5,000 pregnant women had so far been vaccinated against the virus.

So far, 8 to 10 per cent of hospital admissions had been among pregnant women and a higher proportion of these cases have been admitted to ICU.

“It’s having a disproportionate impact on the number being hospitalised as pregnancy only accounts for 1-2 per cent of the population,” Dr Holohan said.