Mums back free vaccine idea

Fewer Rotorua children would have to endure chickenpox or rotavirus if there were free vaccinations.

Local parents can immunise against the two common childhood diseases but the cost - between $60 and $120 - puts many off.

The Paediatric Society has urged the Government to give "urgent priority" to vaccinating all babies against rotavirus, which can cause serious vomiting and diarrhoea.

Pharmac, which took responsibility for the immunisation schedule from the Ministry of Health last year, is also considering a vaccination against chickenpox.

A spokesman said chickenpox and rotavirus vaccinations had been through a subcommittee and would go to Pharmac's main clinical advisory committee in May and they may be free by the end of the year. Many parents commenting on the Rotorua Daily Post Facebook page said they would vaccinate their children if it were included as part of the free schedule, but didn't because of the cost.

That was echoed by Ranolf Medical Centre senior practice nurse Ros Rowarth.

She said the practice received a lot of inquiries about the chickenpox and rotavirus vaccines, however a lot of those inquiring didn't go ahead with the vaccinations, mainly because of the cost.

Mrs Rowarth said the chickenpox vaccination was by far the most commonly queried vaccine although in the last year they had only given 35 doses to their registered client base of almost 11,000 people.

She said it was also seen as a natural childhood illness and many saw it as a way of children building up their own immunity.

"But it can have some serious side-effects."

Lakes District Health Board community paediatrician Dr Belinda Coulter said they continued to see children in hospital for chickenpox and rotavirus, some of them very unwell.

She said clinicians did their best to manage children with these conditions in the community as there were very high rates of cross infection and there was always concern about the risk of accidental cross-infection to a vulnerable child such as a child on chemotherapy or a very young baby.

Because of that she said the number of children admitted to hospital was the "very tip of the iceberg".

Dr Coulter said all of the DHB paediatricians had seen children critically ill with complications of these diseases. She said it didn't happen every year but often enough to make staff very aware of how dangerous the illnesses could be.

Commenting via Facebook, several mums said they had paid for the vaccination. One mother said she paid for her daughter to have the chickenpox vaccine as she had a medical condition.

Another said "chickenpox can be really bad these days and its one virus kids are almost guaranteed to get so why make them go through that."

The World Health Organisation recommended vaccinating all babies against rotavirus in 2009 and Australia has included it in its free immunisation programme since 2007.

Rotavirus vaccines made by drug companies GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Merck are given to babies as liquid medicines.

GSK recently cut its price to $100 for two doses, suggesting the cost of vaccinating all 60,000 Kiwi babies would be about $6 million a year.

Chickenpox vaccines are given by a single injection to infants aged at least 9 months and are about $60-$90 a dose, suggesting a total cost for 60,000 infants of $3.6 million to $5.4 million.