Babies must wait until March for vital TB vaccine

THOUSANDS of newborn babies will have to wait until March at the earliest before they can avail of a potentially vital vaccine which prevents TB.

A Europe-wide shortage of the BCG vaccine in recent months has badly hit Irish maternity hospitals, clinics and GP services, to the extent that there’s little or none of it left in this country.

The news comes as provisional figures from the National Disease Surveillance Centre show there were 458 cases of TB in 2006, up from 381 in 2001.