The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7377 p654
26 November 2005

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Supplies dry up as flu vaccination rates increase

This winter 300,000 more patients than originally expected have been vaccinated against influenza in Scotland and only contingency vaccine stocks remain, the Scottish Pharmaceutical General Council confirmed this week.

The figure was released as the Department of Health in England revealed it was already dipping into its contingency stock of 400,000 vaccines that it expects will dry up before the end of the year. Another 200,000 vaccines, to help replace the exhausted contingency supplies, will not be available until January 2006, according to head of immunisation at the DoH David Salisbury.

In the meantime, the DoH is reminding GPs only to vaccinate those patients in the at-risk categories — those aged 65 and over, people with chronic respiratory, heart, renal or liver disease, people with diabetes, and those who are immunosuppressed or living in long-stay residential care.

A record 14 million vaccines have been made available this winter, far in excess of what is required, said Dr Salisbury. The DoH is negotiating with manufactures to try to boost stocks. “However, this is against an increased international demand for seasonal flu [vaccines] so we may not be successful,” he admitted.

In Scotland, the SPGC head of professional services development, Alex MacKinnon, said that this winter one in four of the Scottish population had been vaccinated against seasonal flu. Last year 800,000 vaccines were given, but this winter the figure has shot up to 1.15 million, a rise of 44 per cent. He said: “It’s more than we would have expected and I think probably happened because a lot of people were panicked about bird flu.” Doctors, he said, had made sure that all patients at risk from flu this winter had been vaccinated so he assumed that the others being given the vaccine had paid for a private prescription.

He said: “The contingency stock of vaccine supplies will be delivered to the health boards very shortly for them to distribute. I don’t think this is a negative story — 300,000 more patients have been vaccinated than we had originally anticipated.”