Seasonal flu jab free for everyone

NZHERALD.CO.NZHave your family or friends been hit by swine flu? Tell your stories onlineAll New Zealanders can get a free flu jab as the Ministry of Health moves to ease pressure on struggling medical centres and hospitals.

Eligibility for a free seasonal influenza vaccine has been extended to all New Zealanders, not just those with underlying health problems.

It is available from general practices from now until the end of September. The vaccine would not protect individuals from swine flu.

But Dr Nikki Turner, director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre, said it was expected to ease the numbers of people seeking treatment for seasonal ills this year as well as reducing the numbers of hospital admissions.

Meanwhile, the swine flu death toll reached six yesterday.

A Northern Regional Health Co-ordination Centre spokeswoman said two people died at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital.

One was confirmed as having had the swine flu A (H1N1) virus. She also had underlying medical problems. The second was a suspected case and staff were awaiting lab results.

The spokeswoman was unable to say if the second person had any other medical conditions.

The number of confirmed cases of swine flu was 1431, up from 1272 the previous day.

New Zealand health officials hope a San Francisco teenager with a Tamiflu-resistant strain of swine flu is diagnosed with a random mutation of the virus.

"We will be asking the Pandemic Influenza Technical Advisory Group to have a look at this," said deputy director of public health Fran McGrath.

She hoped it would turn out to be a "point mutation" of the virus, which can occur in a patient even if they are not taking the anti-viral drug.

The Health Ministry would ask its technical experts to talk to virologists and other specialists at the Centres for Disease Control in the United States "about any evidence of the sort that we're going to be worried about", she said.

There were two main possibilities: either the case of the 16-year-old American girl showed swine flu was capable of not only developing drug resistance but also spreading between humans in that resistant form, or it was a one-off point mutation.

Two other cases of swine flu resistant to Tamiflu had occurred in patients taking the drug in Japan and Denmark, but Dr McGrath said it would be good if the virus had not yet mutated to a form which could spread carrying the mutation.

She said it was important to remember that the virus spreading in New Zealand was still capable of being treated with Tamiflu.

- NZPA