SA to prioritise vaccinations
2009-07-23 22:27
Cape Town - South Africa will have to prioritise who receives swine flu vaccines, the executive director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Thursday.
"Each country will have to decide who will be the recipients of the vaccine," Barry Schoub said in Cape Town after a lecture on the H1N1 or swine flu virus.
"The World Health Organisation has issued directives of who should be prioritised for vaccinations. These include healthcare workers, pregnant women, people with obesity and those with respiratory problems."
Schoub said he was "aware" that South Africa was negotiating for vaccine supplies.
"One will have to decide on a strategy on who should be prioritised," he said.
Some 113 cases of swine flu have been recorded in South Africa. Around 700 people globally have died from the virus.
Australia, which has had 38 deaths, began human trials for an H1N1 vaccine on Wednesday.
Drugs giant Roche expects to sell another $900m worth of an anti-viral drug by the end of the year.
Can be treated like normal flu
Schoub said, however, that swine flu is "generally a very mild illness" and can be treated with antiretroviral drugs.
"Most cases are not that serious. Out of millions of cases, the mortality rate is very low."
The virus can be treated like normal influenza, he said.
"If the manifestations are more severe they can be treated with antiretroviral medicine."
In South Africa, four people with swine flu had developed mild pneumonia. None had have needed ventilatory support. Most affected people had shown mild symptoms and had recovered after a week, even without medical assistance.
The reason for the mass panic, said Schoub, was due to this being a new virus that spreads rapidly.
"It is new and there is some unpredictability about it. It is a pandemic, so there is concern."
He said the virus, which contains elements of avian flu, swine flu and human flu, will eventually die down as population grows more resistant.
Children reservoirs of viruses
The health department last week appealed to children returning to school not to panic over the virus, saying it is much like seasonal flu.
The NICD said there might well be a spike in reported cases as children were known to be "reservoirs of viruses".
As the disease is spread in "droplets" through speaking, sneezing or coughing, Schoub encouraged people to practice coughing and sneezing etiquette.
This meant coughing into a tissue and throwing it into a dustbin afterwards and regularly washing hands with soap and water.
Schoub said last week that it was not necessary for doctors to test for swine flu on every patient showing flu symptoms.
"We have reached a stage where we know the virus is all over the country and there is no point in testing each person," he said.
"Only if there is a very special situation to do the test, then the GP would do it."
- SAPA