About Swine Flu Vaccination

A vaccination against H1N1 Swine Flu will be available at Globe Medical after September 30th 2009. Flu clinics will be available. Check for current times.

What is Swine Flu versus Seasonal Flu?

"Flu" refers to a number of illnesses caused by different strains of influenza. Influenza viruses are grouped into three types known as A, B and C. Serotypes A and B pose the greatest public health risk. Type B can cause sporadic outbreaks amongst children in school and community settings. Both A and B are essentially human viruses prone to mutation.

Swine Influenza (Swine flu) is caused by a highly contagious influenza A virus. Symptoms of swine flu in humans are similar to that of the regular flu, including fever, cough, sore throat, aching body, headache, chills, diarrhoea and vomiting. At a clinical level it cannot be distinguished from seasonal influenza. Severe illness including pneumonia and severe respiratory disease have been reported.

Over the last 5 months Swine flu has been responsible for more than 4,500 hospitalisations and 170 deaths. Ten (10) deaths have occurred in children. Thirteen (13) of the deaths have been in previously healthy people.

The seasonal flu vaccine provides protection for 2 types of Influenza A and 1 type of Influenza B. In this years vaccine the components were A/ Brisbane, A/ Uruguay and B/ Florida.

Until now (September 2009) there has not been a vaccine for the circulating type of H1N1 swine flu. On September 18th the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) approved the Panvax H1N1 vaccine for protection against swine flu. It will become available in medical practices around Australia from September 30th. Human adult trials have indicated that the pandemic vaccine is similar to that of seasonal influenza vaccine with a high safety and low adverse events profile, and that only one injection is required for adequate immunity.

The TGA is awaiting further data on trials of the vaccine for children 9 and under and has therefore not yet made a decision on use of the vaccine in children. This is expected in the near future.

There will be no cost for the vaccine.

A comprehensive list of FAQ’s on the new vaccine is available at:

http://www.healthemergency.gov.au/internet/healthemergency/publishing.nsf/Content/pandemic-vaccine-qna-toc