More flu vaccines from May
Matome Sebelebele
18 April 2005
With supplies running low as winter approaches, the Department of Health has given an assurance that more influenza vaccines will be made available in the country from the beginning of May to complement the current stock.
Health care providers have been advised to give preference to higher priority individuals when using the current limited stock of vaccines.
These include the elderly, patients with underlying chronic heart and lung diseases, immuno-suppressed patients, patients with chronic renal disease, and diabetics.
Early vaccination is important to ensure that vaccines become effective before the beginning of South Africa's influenza season - normally well into June.
The country's health authorities have thus urged South Africans requiring influenza vaccines to visit their health facilities from the beginning of May. Immunity becomes effective from 10 to 14 days after vaccination.
The Health Department says the country
is faced with a shortage of influenza vaccine this year as a result of a discrepancy in the quantification of the haemagglutinin content of one of the vaccines. Release of this vaccine has been suspended pending re-evaluation.
Department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said vaccines available in South Africa were vigorously tested for safety and efficacy by the National Control Laboratory of SA and licensed by the Medicine Control Council.
"Therefore, influenza vaccines available in South Africa for 2005 are of high quality and meet international standards for efficacy and for safety", Mngadi said.
Human flu vs bird flu
Regarding the avian influenza currently affecting some parts of South East Asia, the Department noted that human influenza vaccine targets prevalent strains of the human influenza virus, which are quite different from the avian influenza virus.
Avian influenza, or "bird flu", is a contagious disease of animals
caused by viruses that normally infect birds and, less commonly, pigs.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there is evidence that the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus - which has been circulating among birds in South East Asia - has a unique capacity to mutate which might enable it to "jump the species barrier", causing a disease with high mortality in humans.
In order to prevent human infection, the WHO recommends reduced opportunities for human exposure to infected poultry through rapid detection and control measures.
To date, no cases of bird flu caused by the H5N1 strain have been reported in South Africa. The H5N2 stain, last detected in August 2004 at ostrich farms in the Eastern Cape, was successfully contained.
Source: BuaNews
| 
