Bird flu shots coming - in winter

The Ministry of Health says it has secured a deal to cover 20 per cent of the country during a flu pandemic.

The bulk of the vaccine is expected to arrive in mid-winter, although the first batch is expected in May.

The Director-General of Health, Dr Karen Poutasi, said the ministry had ordered hundreds of thousands of doses of the Roche product Tamiflu to help it deal with the prospect of a pandemic of bird flu or a similar type of influenza.

The announcement comes a week after the ministry, which was questioned about New Zealand's preparedness for coping with a bird flu pandemic, said it was negotiating to buy extra vaccine doses to add to the 20,000 it already possessed.

"We are buying more than 800,000 doses - sufficient to cover approximately 20 per cent of the population," Dr Poutasi said yesterday.

Questions about New Zealand's preparedness were raised last week after a World Health Organisation official said this month that up to 100 million people around the world could die within weeks if a bird flu pandemic broke out.

"This purchase is in line with international recommendations, and will put us on the same sort of footing as Australia and well ahead of many other countries," Dr Poutasi said.

"It is important to note, however, that there has been no sudden change in the international situation.

"Particularly pertinent is the fact that the World Health Organisation has not recorded any human deaths from avian influenza since February 9 this year."

Dr Poutasi said people who took Tamiflu as soon as they developed influenza symptoms "have been shown to have less severe illness, of shorter duration and may be less likely to infect others as they shed less of the virus".

The WHO has confirmed 10 human cases of bird flu so fat this year in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. Human cases have been the result of direct contact with infected birds. Green Party health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley last week said the Government should have acted sooner to stockpile the doses.

- NZPA