Influenza Vaccine

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31942, 20 March 1969, Page 14

Influenza Vaccine

Drug wholesalers are obviously having no trouble in disposing of their stocks of influenza vaccine. The public may well ask whether the vaccine is reaching those persons most likely to require immunisation in the event of the Hong Kong virus becoming widespread. Doctors who cannot obtain supplies to vaccinate patients who might suffer severely if infected have every reason to complain against the distribution arrangements. Dr J. B. Lovell-Smith, the medical secretary of the Medical Association of New Zealand, made a sensible proposal when he said that every general practitioner might have been offered 30 doses of the vaccine.

Medical opinion seems to be agreed that normally healthy persons are unlikely to suffer more from this strain of influenza than from others. The symptoms are similar: the term of the fever is about the same. Doses of the vaccine are costing doctors about 75 cents each; and their charges for injections, though they may seem high to some patients, are not excessive. The Department of Health would probably allay much unnecessary public concern if it gave more information about the nature of the infection and its views on the desirability of immunisation. The department would almost certainly be able to assure citizens that there is no immediate risk of a serious outbreak of influenza, and little need for healthy persons to seek vaccination.