More flu vaccine doses purchased

Another 360,000 flu vaccine doses have been purchased after concerns there would be a shortage of a full strength vaccine this winter, Health Minister Annette King said today.

Ms King said successful talks between GlaxoSmithKline, Pharmac and the Health Ministry meant the extra doses of a full-strength flu vaccine could be used in a vaccination programme.

The ministry would announce next week how the programme would be rolled out this year.

The health sector should be congratulated for finding a solution to the shortage caused by a manufacturing error in Pharmac's sole supplier of the vaccine Sanofi-Pasteur, Ms King said.

Pharmac announced yesterday that GlaxoSmithKline had agreed to supply 8000 doses of a fully effective influenza vaccine to New Zealanders, bringing the total full-strength vaccines to 158,000.

That left health authorities 592,000 doses of vaccine short for the national influenza vaccination programme.

The extra 360,000 will further reduce that shortfall.

Ms King said it was "not all plain sailing yet" and she hoped people would let Pharmac and the ministry get on with their job and stop criticising them.

"They have succeeded in a difficult negotiating environment where all the southern hemisphere countries have been looking for more vaccine at the same time," Ms King said.

The hunt for more vaccine began on February 28 when the French company Sanofi Pasteur's doses was found to lack immunisation capability for one of the three strains of the virus it was designed to protect against.

This year is the first time Pharmac has purchased the vaccine on the Government's behalf -- having taken over the role from the Health Ministry -- and it continued its sole supply tradition.

While 70 per cent of southern hemisphere countries with the same policy have also been caught out by the bungle, Australia was able to overcome the problem because it had a second supplier.

- NZPA