Clean bill of health for flu vaccines

None of the influenza vaccines administered locally came from Chiron Corporation's Liverpool factory which was at the centre of a controversy over fears of contamination.

Earlier this month, medicine watchdogs suspended the British manufacturing licence of the Californian company's plant in Liverpool, the world's second largest supplier, amid fears of contamination at the factory.

However, Disease Surveillance Unit principal medial officer Tanya Fenech Melillo said there was "no association whatsoever" between the influenza vaccines which were administered in Malta and those produced by the British company. Dr Melillo said Chiron was manufacturing solely for the American market.

Vaccines available in Malta were produced by three companies: GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis Pasteur and Solvay Pharmaceuticals in the Netherlands.

Any shortage in influenza vaccines now is attributed to all vaccines in the private sector having been given out. Dr Melillo explained that vaccines in the private sector come out by the end of August and general practitioners would have ordered them in June.

"Usually by the end of September you will not find any as doctors would have given them out," she said.

However, Dr Melillo said she did not think there had been any complaints about shortages of vaccines because most people interested in taking the vaccine are informed by their doctor when they become available. Notices are put up in clinics and pharmacies, where people can buy and take the injection, about the availability of the vaccine.

"Unfortunately, those who leave it too late - after the first week of October - may not find it," Dr Melillo said.

Those aged over 65s and those in high-risk groups, like diabetics, chronic respiratory disease sufferers, HIV positive cases and sufferers of cardiovascular disease, can get the influenza vaccine for free.

Dr Melillo said that last year the government gave out 25,000 vaccines, while about 24,000 were administered by the private sector, which amounts to about 12 per cent of the country's population.