Fevers in 60 children linked to flu jab

DOCTORS have been told to stop giving children the seasonal flu vaccine amid growing reports of adverse reactions to the injection.

Australia's chief medical officer Jim Bishop today said health professionals nationwide should immediately stop immunising children under five with the vaccine, as a precaution.

The move comes after Western Australia yesterday suspended the vaccination of all children over fears more than 60 children may have had adverse reactions to the flu vaccine.

New South Wales and Queensland today confirmed that they had stopped giving children the seasonal flu vaccine.

WA Health Department chief health officer Dr Tarun Weeramanthri said a higher-than-expected number of reactions to the vaccine, which is offered free by the State Government to children under five, had been reported.

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The Princess Margaret children's hospital (PMH) had reported 44 children under 10 had presented with febrile convulsions, of which 23 related to the paediatric flu vaccine.

Of the 23 children, 12 were admitted to hospital.

The average age of children who had reactions to the vaccine was about two years, but children aged between five and 10 also experienced fevers and convulsions.

Dr Weeramanthri said another 40 children under 10 had been taken to other hospitals in the state with febrile convulsions, and work was being done to assess if there was a link to the vaccine.

"Advice from West Australian clinicians has said that there is a consistent clinical picture that they're seeing, with fever and vomiting around six hours and certainly within 12 hours of vaccination," he said.

The WA health department is working with other states and territories to compile data, but there have been no reports of a spike in reactions to the vaccine in other states.

"It's important to get an estimate of both how many have been vaccinated and how many children have potentially had reactions," Dr Weeramanthri said.

The department and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) had honed in on what they thought the cause of the increased reactions was, Dr Weeramanthri said.

"The Therapeutic Goods Administration is working with the manufacturers on two lines of inquiry," he said.

"One is the data from around the country about where we're getting any signals of increased reactions and which batches went where.

"The second is to actually directly test the batches held by the various manufacturers for any impurities."

There had been no reports of an increased reaction rate to the single pandemic swine flu strain vaccine.

"So whether this is an issue about the combination of antigens ... in this vaccine, which has three parts compared to a single vaccine, is something that TGA is looking at," Dr Weeramanthri said.

"That's the first time that particular antigen has been included, but one must remember that the strains of flu change regularly and so there are regular changes in the formulation of the flu vaccine."

In Queensland, 41 cases of adverse reactions to the seasonal flu vaccine have been reported. Of those, 15 have been in children aged five years and under, with symptoms including high temperatures and febrile convulsions.

Queensland's chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said the figures were higher than usual for so early in the flu season.

"We are definitely seeing something going on but we don't know what that is," she said.

Dr Young said Queensland Health was being "super cautious" but had decided to follow the warnings from the commonwealth chief medical officer to halt the vaccination of all children.

"I totally agree with that approach ... but there may be nothing wrong," she said.

"It maybe just there are cases being notified and that really they are not out of the ordinary.

"Until we know that, we are just asking people to halt and we will get the information together as quickly as we can."

Children who have received the first needle should not have the second.

Symptoms should be evident within 12 hours of having the vaccine.

Dr Young said everyone aged over five who wanted to be vaccinated against seasonal flu should get the swine flu vaccination.

The Federal Government has made human swine flu vaccination free for everyone, while seasonal flu vaccination is free only for those aged 65 years and over, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years or more, pregnant women and those, six months and older, with certain chronic conditions.

Dr Young said it was important that these people continue to be vaccinated against seasonal flu.

NSW Health have confirmed they have halted the vaccine program and are now reviewing their data and hospital admissions to see whether similar adverse reactions are happening here.


[link to www.news.com.au]


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And they say vaccines are good for us