State’s bird flu vaccine supply ‘may be useless’
A specialist with the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, Doctor Derval Igoe, said the virus was likely to mutate from the current H5N1 strain of the disease, which the Government stockpiles can protect against.
The Department of Health said they were exploring the possibility of advance purchase agreements, which means they would agree to buy whatever new vaccine is developed after the pandemic emerges.
The department has begun stepping up its preparation measure after the first human deaths from bird flu outside South-East Asia were confirmed in Turkey yesterday.
Doctors said an 11-year-old girl who died yesterday, and her two brothers who died earlier in the week, probably contracted the illness by playing with dead chickens.
But World Health Organisation has carried out tests to determine whether the bird flu cases resulted from human-to-human transmission. This would mean that the virus could spread quickly within a matter of weeks, causing a global pandemic.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “Vaccine will be the primary public health intervention in the event of a pandemic.”
But it will take about four to six months from when any bird flu pandemic emerges before a suitable vaccine can be made to immunise people against it.
Dr Igoe said that even if the vaccines currently in stock will not protect against the strain that emerges, “they might provide some limited protection or temporary cover.”
“It’s sensible to prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” she said.
The Department of Health has also purchased enough anti-viral drugs to treat 25% of the population.
