Next Phase of Vaccination Programme

Invitations to children aged 6 months - Under 5 and then to people aged over 65

Designed to avoid queueing

The HSE today (9th November 2009) announced that its Swine Flu vaccination clinics around the country will shortly begin inviting children from 6 months to under 5 years of age and people aged 65 and over to be vaccinated against swine flu.  This is part of the phased roll out of the vaccine to the Irish population.

The Swine Flu vaccination campaign kicked off in earnest on Monday November 2^nd, and over the last week, over 30,000 people in the first at-risk groups have been vaccinated in HSE clinics, and many more by their GP.  This first group included pregnant women and people aged under 65 with long term illnesses.

We continue to vaccinate this group, but we also wish to start moving on the next priority groups for Swine Flu vaccination.  These will be children aged from 6 months to under 5 years, and people aged 65 and over.

We wish to move through this group in an orderly manner, so to avoid queues at clinics.  Starting this week, the HSE is writing to parents of children aged from 6 months to under 5 years, to let them know when it is time for them bring their child to the HSE clinic for their vaccine.  Parents of children in this group will begin to receive letters starting this week and throughout November and early December. People aged 65 and over will begin to be invited over the coming fortnight.

Dr. Brenda Corcoran, HSE National Immunisation Office, said “We have been giving the first supplies of vaccine to people more at risk from Swine Flu such as pregnant women, people with long term illness and cancer patients.  We now want to start offering the vaccine to all children aged over 6 months and under 5 years. Children in this age group are more at risk of getting Swine Flu and are also more at risk of being hospitalised because of complications so we want to make sure that we protect as many children as possible from the effects of the flu.’

‘The next group that we will focus on will be people aged 65 and over.  Again, we will shortly be writing to people in this age group to invite them to attend our vaccine clinics for an appointment.  This will ensure that people do not have to queue for a long time and will also ensure that busier clinics are not over run. Once these two target groups have been commenced, we will move on to begin vaccinating older children.”

‘We would ask people in these groups to be patient and to wait for their invitation to arrive.  Everyone in these groups will be offered the vaccine throughout November and December.’

Parents of young children and people over 65 who are not part of the original at-risk group (long term illness/cancer patient or pregnant) should not attend their GP or HSE vaccine clinic without an appointment -  Invitation letters to attend for vaccination will be issued over the coming weeks in a planned and controlled way.  The HSE will first be writing out to people in areas where there is capacity in the current clinics.

The vaccine is the best defence we have against the Swine Flu or Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus. Both vaccines available in Ireland, Pandemrix and Celvapan, have been licensed by the European Medicine Agency and the Irish Medicines Board and are being used in many European countries, including Ireland, over the coming weeks and months.

Remember, you can get information about the swine flu vaccine as follows:

From www.swineflu.ie or www.hse.ie
From the automated HSE Flu line 1800 94 11 00
From the HSE infoline 1850 24 1850
From your GP