‘No shortage’ of flu vaccine, says Robin Swann

The minister said “significant quantities of the vaccine are available” and described reports of a 200,000 shortfall in vaccinations as “untrue”.

He was speaking in the Assembly on Monday after it was reported that those aged over 65 could miss out.

This comes after the Public Health Agency (PHA) admitted in October that stocks of the vaccine were running low.

At that time, the agency announced a “pause” in the vaccination programme due to the high level of demand.

Yesterday, however, the PHA’s head of public protection Dr Gerry Waldron said “outstanding deliveries” had now arrived in Northern Ireland.

Dr Waldron said: “For those aged over 65, approximately 296,000 vaccines are in Northern Ireland – this is the full amount that was planned.

“We can also confirm that the outstanding deliveries of vaccine for the under-65s have arrived into Northern Ireland as scheduled so we want to emphasise that there is no shortage for this group. The supplies are being checked and will be available for GPs to order soon, and they will be able to organise their clinics well in advance of the flu season, as was planned.”

He continued: “It was always anticipated that stock would arrive in planned batches, and with the initial batch of vaccine for under-65s used up extremely quickly, the decision to pause was purely practical, as it was simply not possible to continue to vaccinate until the next planned tranche of vaccine became available.”

Dr Tom Black, the chairman of the British Medical Association’s Northern Ireland committee, told the News Letter that the large number of people already vaccinated against flu could “act as a barrier to transmission”.

He warned that an epidemic of flu on top of the coronavirus problems “would be bad”.

Dr Black said: “The overall concern would be that we could get an influenza epidemic on top of the covid pandemic. The two together would be bad.

“The hope is that we have vaccinated so many people against influenza already that it will act as a barrier to transmission. Certainly, the social distancing rules that we have already act as a barrier to transmission.

“We’re certainly hopeful that influenza won’t be a big influence this year but obviously our responsibility is to vaccinate as many people as possible.”