Limited supplies of measles vaccine
Almost half of New Zealand’s measles vaccine is in Canterbury, forcing health authorities to restrict its availability.
Canterbury medical officer of health Dr Ramon Pink said on Wednesday those who had never been vaccinated aged between 12 months and 29 years old were the top priority for immunisation.
Those with one vaccination were considered to have a strong level of protection against the highly infectious disease.
Prior to Wednesday, the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) said on several occasions the best protection against measles was two MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations.
Canterbury Primary Response Group spokesman and GP Phil Schroeder said the change in priorities came because supplies of the MMR vaccine were limited.
New Zealand could only have 60,000 doses of the vaccine at any one time and roughly half of that had already been diverted to Canterbury, he said.
‘‘We thought we were going to be vaccinating vast numbers over the next six weeks.’’
When the group and the CDHB realised there were such limited supplies ‘‘we knew we had to reassign the vaccines’’, Schroeder said.
‘‘We’ve got to get it out to those who are most vulnerable. We’ve had to revise because of limited supplies and had to get smarter about how to use them.’’
Deliveries of 27,000 doses of the vaccine to Canterbury GPs were expected on Tuesday but many practices did not receive their supplies until noon yesterday.
‘‘There’s a global shortage of MMR vaccine and there are epidemics of measles in some areas, so we have to use what we have carefully.’’
Pharmac has been asked to confirm how much vaccine is available and when additional supplies from the manufacturer were expected.
The CDHB said there were 28
‘‘There’s a global shortage of MMR vaccine.’’ GP Phil Schroeder
confirmed cases of measles, with a further 20 suspected cases.
Of the 28, four patients were aged under 15 months old, two were under 5 years old, 13 were aged 5-28 years old, seven were aged 29-50 years old and two cases were aged over 50 years old.
In a briefing to Christchurch City councillors yesterday, Pink said staff were working to limit the spread of the disease, providing advice to family, schools and workplaces of those with confirmed and suspected cases.