A new five-in-one vaccination is being introduced for children in the State from next week.
The vaccine will immunise children against polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and HIB (Haemophilus Influenza Type B), for which vaccinations were already recommended. It will reduce the number of injections children have to receive by one and means they will no longer get the oral polio vaccine.
Instead of receiving three injections and polio drops at each GP vaccination visit, only two injections are now necessary: the five-in-one and a separate vaccination for meningitis C. Details of the new vaccine were announced by the Department of Health yesterday. The polio vaccine has now changed to an inactivated type. This means the oral polio vaccine (OPV), which has actually caused polio in rare cases, is no longer available. "The introduction of this vaccine is based on the expert advice of the Immunisation Advisory Committee of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) which has recommended that oral polio vaccine be replaced by inactivated polio vaccine in both the primary childhood immunisation programme and the booster programme," the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said.
Mr Colin McCaffrey of Informed Immunization Network, a national organisation concerned with risks and safety of vaccinations, said a five-in-one vaccine should not be introduced until concerns over the three-in-one vaccine had been allayed.
Claims linking the three-in-one vaccine with autism have been rejected by most specialists and the Department of Health.
Tetravac and Pentavac, the new vaccines, were licensed by the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) in March. They are "safe and efficacious", an IMB spokeswoman said, and have been licensed in many European countries before Ireland.