Minister for Health and Children Mr Martin today announced the introduction of Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) into the childhood immunisation programme.
The introduction is based on the expert advice of the Immunisation Advisory Committee of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI).
The RCPI recommended that IPV replace Oral Polio Vaccine in the Primary Childhood Immunisation Programme and the booster programme.
The new vaccine is due to be introduced next Monday (July 16th) after the completion of a training and information programme for GPs, community-care personnel and other health professionals.
The polio vaccination has been the subject of some controversy in the last few months. On December 19th, Minister Martin announced that a polio vaccine given to thousands of children in 1998 contained serum from a donor later diagnosed with vCJD.
Mr Martin said that as the donor's plasma was mixed with that from 63,000 others, the risk of infection was "almost certainly zero". Professor William Hall, director of the Virus Reference Laboratory, went further and said that in his opinion there was "zero risk" of contracting vCJD from the vaccine.
Following the announcement, Fine Gael’s spokesman for Health and Children, Mr Gay Mitchell TD, called on the Government to appoint an independent inspector to carry out a review of vaccine safety and to issue a public report on the inspector’s findings.
At the Lindsay Tribunal in March it emerged that up to 10 per cent of polio vaccines from the batch under investigation for CJD links may have been issued after their expiry date. Calls were made for improved vaccination tracing mechanisms.
Polio vaccine is given to children at the ages of two months, four months and six months, and a booster immunisation is given at primary school entry age. Adults travelling to regions such as China, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia are also vaccinated against polio. There is only one known case of Variant CJD in the Republic of Ireland.
