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Only Govt Health Centres to Administer H1N1 Vaccines
SHARJAH — Vaccination against H1N1 virus will be carried out only in designated government health centres, said Dr Mahmoud Fikri, Chaiman of Technical H1N1 Committee, on Tuesday. He said private medical establishments in the country will not be allowed to carry out the vaccination.
“All health workers from the private sector will also be vaccinated in government centres,” said Dr Fikri while speaking to Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the first workshop carried out to familiarise health workers with the National Immunisation Campaign with the pandemic influenza-A (H1N1) vaccine.
Launching the campaign in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, the ministry of health officials announced the names of 14 health centres where the vaccinations will take place.
“Vaccinations will be done free of cost in designated health centres and preventive health departments in these emirates,” said Dr Fikri, who is also the chief executive officer of health policies in the health ministry.
The UAE launched its H1N1 vaccination campaign on Saturday but started inoculating Haj pilgrims on Monday. Though the vaccination is compulsory for all pilgrims, it will be optional for the other high risk categories.
Earlier this week, 40,000 doses of GlaxoSmithKline’s Pandemrix vaccine reached the country. However, since only 6,228 pilgrims are being vaccinated in the first phase, the remaining vaccine will be administered to healthcare workers working in the emergency departments.
“We will administer the vaccines phase-wise. After the pilgrims, categories of healthcare workers too have been prioritised,” said Dr Emad Abdul Karim, Consultant, Community Medicine and Vaccinology.
He said that the next phase of the vaccination to immunise pregnant women and children will only start when the next batch of vaccine arrives in the country.
Talking about monitoring and surveillance for adverse effects of the vaccine, Dr Emad said, “Adverse reactions are more common in mass campaigns because there is more pressure on the staff, supplies may be short and extra staff inexperienced in administering vaccines may cause problems.”
He advised head of health centres to plan ahead in order to avoid such complications.
Healthcare workers attending the workshop were also briefed on the safety and method of administering the vaccine. “Ask the patient to wait for 15 minutes after administering the vaccine to check for any adverse reactions,” said Dr Aly Ziwar, Medical and Regulatory Director, GSK, Gulf and Near East.
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