BRITAIN: The UK's department of health, under fire for allowing flu vaccine stocks to run perilously low, last night admitted that the number of Britons eligible for free jabs was far higher than it had first suggested.
About 13.5 million people were in risk groups, it said, and not the 11 million stated when the department announced that it was reviewing the system of ordering supplies - at present the responsibility of GPs or, in Scotland, pharmacies. Ministers still insisted that the number of doses officials had agreed with manufacturers - 14 million plus 400,000 in emergency central supplies - was enough for this winter.
In a Commons statement, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, defended the government's handling of the annual immunisation programme.
"We know that a number of GPs have run out," she told MPs, pinning some of the blame on media coverage of avian flu.
For the Conservatives, Andrew Lansley said that the number of vulnerable people eligible for jabs was 14 million rather than 11 million, the figure for England alone. Officials had failed to factor in concern over avian flu or pandemic flu and new eligible groups, he said.
The UK Department of Health has revised the at-risk figure to 13.5 million, but insisted that the take-up figures for the end of October was lower than at the same time last year: less than half of over-65s and one in four in other risk categories. But there have been late deliveries of vaccine because of production delays.
Doctors say they would lose money if they vaccinated the "worried well" rather than priority groups. Meanwhile, Ms Hewitt said her department was releasing flu vaccine from contingency stocks and had bought an additional 200,000 doses.
The department said that the amount ordered this year "allowed for a possible 25 per cent increase in uptake in risk groups, compared with last year, as well as supplies for occupational use, carers and private practice". - (Guardian Service)