Flu Vaccination Poses Biggest Challenge to U.k. Health System
“We havent done mass vaccination like this before,” said Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Associations General Practitioners Committee.
An estimated 295,000 people in the U.K. contracted flu-like illnesses in the four weeks that ended Aug. 2, and 36 Britons are known to have died from the H1N1 pandemic virus since it first appeared in Mexico in April, according to the Department of Health. As many as 65,000 people in the country could die from H1N1, Englands Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson estimated last month.
The U.K. wont be able to inoculate its 61.6 million residents against swine flu before the flu season reaches its peak next winter, said a leader of the group of doctors who will give most of the shots.
The countrys National Health Service will need until next year to complete the vaccination program if it begins in the autumn as expected, said Maureen Baker, honorary secretary of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Seasonal flu peaks in early January in the U.K., according to the groups data.
“Its very reasonable that it will go into next year,” Baker, who leads pandemic planning for the professional group, said last week in an interview. “Whatever service you use to administer the vaccine may well be under pressure dealing with flu anyway or indeed have a reasonably high absenteeism rate from work on account of people being ill themselves.”
132 Million Doses
The U.K. government has said it expects to receive by year end about half of the 132 million doses of swine flu vaccine it plans to buy from manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline Plc of London and Baxter International Inc. of Deerfield, Illinois. The figures assume each person will need two shots to be protected against the illness.
Family doctors and nurses administer about 13 million seasonal influenza shots a year during three-minute appointments, about one-tenth of the number that would be required to vaccinate the entire population against the pandemic virus. About 80 percent of seasonal shots are given by the end of November, according to a 2007 report by an independent panel that reviewed Englands seasonal flu program.
Complicating the pandemic effort is uncertainty over how much vaccine will be available and when.
Maximum Output
Health Secretary Andy Burnham previously said he expected the first swine flu vaccine to be delivered to the U.K. at the end of August. The manufacturers have said they dont expect to make their vaccines available until September or October, provided they pass safety hurdles.
All manufacturers combined would be able to produce a maximum of 94 million doses of pandemic flu vaccine a week worldwide, said Duclos, whos based in Geneva. “When you distribute these doses around the world that doesnt necessarily amount to a lot in a given country,” he said.
Family doctors, who provide routine health care including seasonal flu shots to most Britons, and nurses they employ are expected to administer much of the swine flu vaccine. There are about 50,000 general practitioners across the country, according to the RCGP, or about 1 for every 1,200 people.
Distribution Plan
“The most sensible thing would be to use existing frameworks,” health department spokesman Peter Graham said in a telephone interview. “GPs already run efficient seasonal flu campaigns. A lot of it could be bundled with that.”
Buckman said the medical association is still discussing details of the inoculation program with the health department. David Salisbury, the Health Departments director of immunization, said in a June 26 letter to local health authorities that swine flu shots would be distributed much like cervical cancer vaccine, which is given in schools and general practitioners offices.
Government officials may also use workplaces among the sites, depending on which groups need the vaccine most urgently, Baker said. The U.K. hasnt “in living memory” set out to vaccinate the entire population, she said. The shots wouldnt be mandatory.
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