A DECISION to proceed with a vaccination programme against cervical cancer in the northwest next week means a planned booster programme for other childhood vaccinations may be delayed, despite an outbreak of whooping cough in the region in recent months.
Former Irish Medical Organisation president and Sligo-based community medical officer Dr Paula Gilvarry said a decision to go ahead with the first dose of HPV vaccine for some 600 secondary schoolgirls in the Sligo-Leitrim area means that other services, such as the administration of booster vaccines in primary schools, will be delayed.
She said this was happening against a background of a shortage of resources and despite the prioritisation by community health doctors of BCG, MMR and two-in-one vaccinations over the HPV cervical cancer programme.
A paper published in the scientific journal Eurosurveillancegives details of a serious outbreak of whooping cough in Co Leitrim earlier this year. A preliminary investigation identified some 67 possible cases of whooping cough in the Ballinamore area. On average about 80 cases of whooping cough are notified annually in the entire State, underlying the unprecedented scale of the outbreak. The highest attack rates in the outbreak were found in children under the age of 12 months and those aged three and under. The investigators blamed waning immunity against the infectious disease and the absence of a booster dose for the outbreak.
“This pertussis [whooping cough] outbreak occurred in a well-vaccinated community; this is a rare phenomenon that has not been reported in Ireland for many years”, the authors state, adding that a booster shot was recommended by the national immunisation advisory body in 2008 but has yet to be routinely provided.
