Drug body secures safe supply of flu vaccine

QUICK thinking by the State’s drug policing body has ensured that Ireland does not run short of flu vaccine this winter.

The Irish Medicines Board (IMB) is also insisting that the 200,000 additional flu vaccine doses secured from a pharmaceutical company now at the centre of a new health scare in Britain are safe.

Yesterday British authorities suspended the manufacturing licence of the Chiron pharmaceutical company in Liverpool that makes the flu vaccine.

The development will cause a worldwide flu vaccine shortage and follows the decision of US authorities to quarantine 48 million flu doses made by the company because of quality control problems.

The IMB pointed out that the 200,000 flu vaccine doses supplied to Ireland came from the Chiron firm in Italy where no problem had been reported.

The Department of Health has confirmed that almost 598,000 doses have now been secured for Ireland. The national demand is for 530,000 doses.

IMB director of human medicines Dr Joan Gilvarry said they were aware that there was a potential supply problem with the British pharmaceutical firm about four weeks ago and urged the department to look elsewhere.

Dr Gilvarry said the Liverpool company was to have supplied the department with 300,000 doses and that alternative doses have now been secured from GlaxoSmithKline and Solvay in the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the IMB also expressed surprise that Merck chose to pull an arthritic drug called Vioxx from the shelves instead of ensuring that it was only for short-term use.