Medics top of queue for vaccine

During an influenza pandemic, doctors and nurses will be the first to receive vaccinations against the new strain of flu, according to a draft list.

Healthcare workers and public health staff involved in the distribution of the vaccine and the anti-viral medicine Tamiflu are given first priority in the Northland District Health Board list, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act.

Next up for the vaccine, which will not be available until several months after a pandemic is declared (meaning possible panic through shortages), would be the likes of police, firefighters, soldiers, prison guards and ambulance officers.

Third would be "other highly skilled persons who provide essential community services whose absence would either pose a significant hazard to public safety ... or severely disrupt the pandemic response effort".

Included would be air-traffic controllers, telecoms workers and residential caregivers. Cabinet ministers are not mentioned anywhere in the list but would arguably qualify here.

The National Party in November revealed a draft list of who would receive priority access to the Government's stockpile of 855,000 courses of Tamiflu anti-flu capsules during a pandemic. It included Cabinet ministers and their advisers.

The Ministry of Health said at the time that no decisions had been made on the use of the stockpile. It was possible that 10 per cent of it would be held back for treatment of people who worked in essential services.

The Northland board's pandemic plan suggests its vaccine priority list was written by the ministry, but a senior ministry official seemed to contradict this.

"To my knowledge the ministry hasn't put out any policy on priority for vaccine, formally," said the acting director of public health, Dr Alison Roberts. "We haven't got a policy agreed yet."

Details would not be finalised until after a pandemic was declared, she said.

Because a pandemic would involved a new strain of influenza, a vaccine against it cannot be produced until the new strain emerges. It would take several months after a pandemic was declared for the first doses of vaccine to arrive in New Zealand.

On the Northland list, next after telecoms and electricity supply staff - and subject to how the virus acts - are those traditionally considered to be at increased risk of "severe influenza and mortality": people with high-risk medical conditions, followed by pregnant women, people in long-term care or nursing homes, anyone over 50, infants aged 6-12 months (depending on the nature of the pandemic), household contacts of those with high-risk conditions, other critical workers (for example, funeral staff and food-delivery workers), and healthy 18-49-year-olds.

Last are: "Pre-school-age (especially day-care-centre attendees) and school-age children (the population least likely to have severe illness)."

The Northland plan clearly anticipates potential public outcry over the short supply of vaccine and possibly Tamiflu.

Public awareness of who qualifies, and strict accountability during distribution, would be important to dispel rumours and decrease panic.