Action call on child vaccine

I WAS concerned to read (Irish Examiner March 28) that “babies in Cork face a three-month waiting list for BCG, a vaccine routinely administered to newborns in every other county.”

I would like to draw a comparison with children in the Republic who have been waiting for the introduction of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine to the immunisation schedule while children in the North have been routinely vaccinated since last September. This vaccine is routinely administered to children in Britain, US, Canada, Australia, Mexico and 10 other EU countries.

Last week the WHO announced a new policy supporting national immunisation programmes worldwide against pneumococcal disease.