Government defends meningococcal vaccine

Nine-year-old Potiki Martin, of Kura Kaupapa School, Wairarapa, is one of the nearly 1 million children to have been vaccinated. Picture / Wairarapa Times-Age

Health Minister Annette King is defending the meningococcal B disease vaccination programme after claims the vaccine was not fully tested before being used on children.

Nearly 1 million children have been vaccinated through the campaign. It follows 230 deaths and 5700 cases during a 14-year epidemic in New Zealand.

Ms King said no off-the-shelf vaccine had been available for the B strain of the disease so one had to be adapted. No clinical phase three trial was done.

"The approach we took in developing stage one and stage two clinical trials with the University of Auckland and then a roll out of it was actually put to international experts as well as our own regulators," Ms King told National Radio.

Experts said New Zealand was taking the right approach, she said.

Ms King said she trusted the vaccine was effective, despite the lack of testing, and gave the example of Counties Manukau where the vaccine was first rolled out and has had few cases this year.

In Waikato -- which got the vaccination later -- there were nine cases in 2004 and 15 cases so far this year -- four of them resulted in intensive care.

Advice given to parents made it clear it was unknown how long the vaccine would last. "We've got ongoing studies to measure that, she said."

Ms King said the meningococcal epidemic had not peaked yet. "It goes up and down over time."

She said that while deaths were down as a result of the disease being caught sooner, the numbers of people contracting it were still high.

Some parents have also claimed they were being railroaded in signing consent forms for the vaccination.

Newspapers have reported some parents were given forms and told they had to be returned to school without enough time to consider the issue while others said their children were pressuring them after being shown videos of people suffering from the disease.

Ms King did not support parents being pressured and said it was their decision what to do.

"In no way is that part of any official campaign... We are not into coercion that is for the people to decide."

She said the Health Ministry may need to talk to schools about how they presented information to children.

Parents were told about side effects such as headaches and it was included in pamphlets, Ms King said, and they knew what to expect.

"They are told what the reactions are likely to be, what to do in the case of reactions, about serious reactions and what you should do then... it sets out reactions," she said.

- NZPA