Drug firm launches campaign

Press, 20 February 1989, Page 7

Drug firm launches campaign

By

SARAH SANDS

A drug company has launched a user-pays campaign to immunise schoolchildren against hepatitis B. Smith, Kline and French, which manufactures a hepatitis B vaccine, announced yesterday it was starting a "vaccination service” that would target schoolchildren, in a campaign to curb the spread of hepatitis B. With the co-operation of school authorities, the company would provide education programmes for teachers, parents and children.

A full vaccination programme with three injections would be offered at $3O for children under 10 and under and $45 for children aged more than 10 — “prices substantially lower than a similar course of treatment would have cost a year ago.” Vaccination, with parental consent, would be given mainly in schools by trained nurses under the supervision of a doctor.

The chairman of the Medical Association, Dr Tony Baird, said

last evening that any campaign involving immunisations sould be centred on general practitioners and their staff.

The association had “great reservations” about the vaccination programme organised by the Health Department because it had "by-passed” general practitioners, said Dr Baird. “So if Smith, Kline and French are trying to do something similar, I would have some reservations about it.”

Hepatitis B was a problem in New Zealand, particularly among children, he said. The highest prevalence of the disease was in Polynesian children in the North Island.

It was important that a vaccination campaign be set up properly with good records kept to ensure that children received all the necessary doses.

“Clearly there is a profit involved for the drug company and one has to be circumspect about that, but if the funds are not coming from anywhere else then this is the way things are going to

go,” said Dr Baird. The community and doctors would have to watch the campaign carefully to make sure it was safe and that it was not the “thin end of the wedge,” said Dr Baird.

The general manager of Smith, Kline and French, Mr Fraser MacKenzie, said New Zealand probably had the highest hepatitis B infection rate in the Western world. The vaccination service was unique to New Zealand and built on the Government’s pre-school vaccination programme. In starting the service, the company was acknowledging the limitations to health spending and was taking user-pays health protection to the community, said Mr McKenzie.

“We believe the public will be willing to pay for this vaccination programme which has the potential to significantly reduce the consequences of hepatitis B in New Zealand.”

The company felt it was able to combine commercial and ethi-

cal considerations into a vaccination programme that would contribute to the health of the nation, said Mr MacKenzie. “There is ample medical literature to indicate that schoolchildren in particular are at risk of this serious disease and that a vaccination programme will inhibit its spread,” he said. “In time, and with public support, it could be possible, if not to eradicate, to significantly impact on the incidence of hepatitis B in the same way as we have controlled polio and tuberculosis.” A pilot programme in Auckland schools had demonstrated widespread support for immunisation, said Mr MacKenzie.

“However, it is clear that in present circumstances, public funds cannot be used for a campaign such as this.”

Mr McKenzie said the vaccination service was a special activity but future programmes “where public health and company interests can blend for the general good” could not be ruled out.