Swine flu vaccine running low in some municipalities

Finland’s situation seen as relatively good

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Vaccine against the H1N1 virus is running low in some Finnish municipalities. In Järvenpää and Kerava the vaccine has temporarily run out. Also in Tampere, there is enough for only a few more days, unless new supplies come soon.
      On Monday Vantaa and Espoo were among the communities to start offering the shots to people considered to be in high-risk groups. In Espoo 2,651 people were vaccinated. The queues at public health clinics stretched for hundreds of metres.
      Long lines were reported in Tampere, Turku, and Oulu.
      “The present vaccines should be enough, if we get more on Thursday”, said Jane Marttila.
     
Minister of Social Services Paula Risikko (Nat. Coalition Party) said on Monday in a television news interview, that people in risk groups for swine flu should not have to queue out of doors for a flu shot.
      Jussi Merikallio, social and health director at the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, admits that the arrangements for vaccines have not succeeded as well as they should have in some of the local authorities.
      He says that the biggest problem is the unpredictability of deliveries of the vaccine. According to the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), problems have been caused by variations in the capacity of the manufacturer of the vaccine.
     
Local authorities have had trouble getting the additional personnel they need because of uncertainty on the exact timing of the deliveries of the vaccine.
      The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health issued a reminder to municipal authorities on the importance of keeping the public informed.
      Jussi Merikallio concedes that some municipalities have relied excessively on the Internet. However, he adds that in many locations, the vaccination programme has proceeded well, under the circumstances.
     
There have been varying interpretations on who should be entitled to the vaccine. In Lahti, for instance, members of the city’s symphony orchestra were given shots because the orchestra was about to go on tour in Central Europe, where the pandemic is raging.
      Pekka Mattila, head physician responsible for out-patient medicine in the City of Lahti, says that the decision to vaccinate the orchestra was made by his predecessor, before going on a leave of absence.
      “I did not change the decision. I felt that it was in line with the instruction given by THL on the use of common sense.”
     
The City of Kouvola is vaccinating all mothers who gave birth in September and October. The city’s head physician Kati Myllymäki says that people were invited to get vaccinated in a situation in which it was not known for sure when the vaccine would become available. It was easiest simply to ask all who gave birth within a specific time period to get vaccinated.
      Tuija Leino, a special researcher at THL, says that women who have recently given birth should take antiviral medicines if they come down with the flu, but they are not considered to be a special risk group with respect to the vaccine. “These have been mixed up in some municipalities. The correct order needs to be observed.”
     
In spite of frustration and anger expressed by people in the long queues for the vaccine, Markku Kuusi, head physician at THL says that the vaccination programme is proceeding better in Finland than in many other countries.
      “Finland is one of the few countries in the world that is getting the vaccine at this pace”, Kuusi says.
      Kuusi notes that the swine flu started spreading last spring in Mexico. Later the World Health Organisation warned that the virus spreads very easily, and could become a worldwide epidemic.
      It was only then that the virus was identified, and the development of a vaccine got underway.
     
New deaths related to swine flu were reported on Monday. THL reported three cases in which patients who had been diagnosed with swine flu had died.
      On Friday, a 68-year-old patient with a chronic disease died in the North Ostrobothnia area. The patient had caught the swine flu three weeks earlier, when arriving in hospital.
      The Lapland Hospital District reported that the virus was involved in the deaths of two cancer patients during the weekend, aged 73 and 74. They were given the Tamiflu antiviral medicine, as well as antibiotics, to no avail.
      “Both had long-term illnesses. Any infection could have had the same outcome”, says Markku Broas of the Lapland Hospital district.
     
The three deaths raise the total Finnish death toll related to swine flu to five. THL head physician Markku Kuusi says that the vaccinations hav probably already saved lives.
      Five swine flu patients were in intensive care at facilities of the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District. Thousands of new infections are reported in the area every day.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Swine flu spreading in south of Finland (4.11.2009)
  Doctors urged to prescribe swine flu medicine also to patients not in risk groups (6.11.2009)
  No change in vaccination schedule over swine flu deaths (5.11.2009)

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