Vaccine investigated for links to chronic fatigue

The meningitis vaccine used on more than a million New Zealand children is being investigated amid concern it may trigger chronic fatigue syndrome.

Documentaries screened in Norway, where the vaccine was developed, have linked it to the syndrome, myalgic encephalopathy (ME), the Sunday Star-Times reported today. The Health Ministry here is monitoring the work of a panel of international medical experts overseeing a study into the safety of the vaccine.

New Zealand immunisation programme director Dr Jane O'Hallahan said they were concerned about events in Norway, which were being monitored, but nothing had caused the programme to question the vaccine's safety.

New Zealand and Norway are the only countries to have used the vaccine, developed in the late 1980s. It was tested on 180,000 Norwegian teenagers who each received two doses and the study into its safety is investigating them.

The vaccine was never used outside the trial in Norway and the meningococcal epidemic there waned naturally.

New Zealand bought the vaccine in 2001 and in 2004 and it was declared safe after small trials here and data from Norway.

About 1.1 million Kiwi children under 20 have received three shots of the vaccine, about 200,000 of whom were aged 13 to 17.

The newspaper said Norwegian Professor Ola Didrik Saugstad has claimed a correlation between 19 people who had been part of the vaccine trial and their later diagnosis with ME.

A Norwegian website says Prof Saugstad is related to someone with ME and is involved in the Norwegian ME Association. Prof Saugstad told the Star-Times he wrote to a New Zealand colleague about his concerns before the vaccination programme began here and was told the New Zealand authorities would passively monitor for ME.

ME mostly strikes adults aged 25 to 40, but can also afflict children and teenagers.

- NZPA