Newborns missing TB jab due to shortages

ROUTINE vaccination of newborns to protect against TB has been suspended at two of the country’s largest maternity hospitals on foot of a Europe-wide shortage of the BCG vaccine.

Both the National Maternity Hospital at Holles St and the Rotunda Hospital, which between them deliver close to 1,500 babies each month, have been hit by the shortage.

Yesterday a spokesperson for the Health Service Executive said the vaccine had been unavailable at both hospitals since early November. He said BCG vaccination clinics at the Coombe maternity hospital had been scaled back from three per week to one.

In Cork, the vaccine shortage has temporarily scuppered plans to reintroduce the routine vaccination of newborns against TB. The practice stopped 35 years ago, but was due to recommence in October in line with national immunisation policy. However, it is now expected stocks of the vaccine will not be available again before March 2008.

The shortage is due to difficulties at the Norwegian laboratory which independently verifies the BCG vaccine on behalf of its Danish manufacturers, the Statens Serum Institute. Health authorities in Europe, including the Irish Medicines Board, require vaccines are independently assessed before release for sale. Once verified, they are given what is known as European batch release, currently withheld from the BCG.

Cllr Tommy Cullen, an independent member of Wicklow County Council, said a number of his constituents had been waiting for the BCG since October. “You have a situation where parents are advised to get the BCG for their babies and then, when they contact the public health nurse, there are no stocks.

“What is the point in promoting vaccines to prevent against disease and then telling people the vaccine is not available. If the HSE can’t get the TB programme right, what hope have they in the event of bird flu?” Mr Cullen asked.

The HSE said it had sought alternative supplies of SSI BCG from other countries, so far without success, and is in regular contact with the SSI to get stocks as soon as possible.

Statistics from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre show the number of people with TB rose year on year over a five-year beginning 2001, from 381 to 461 cases. Provisional data for 2006 shows 458 cases, with the highest number per head of population in the south. Earlier this year, an outbreak of TB at two Cork crèches left 21 people infected.