§ 34. Mr. Croninasked the Minister of Health if he will indicate the two approximate totals of the number of injections of imported Salk vaccine and vaccine produced in the United Kingdom, respectively, which he estimates will have been given when his present poliomyelitis vaccination has been completed.
§ Mr. Walker-SmithThe programme is a continuing one and no such estimate is, therefore, possible, but up to the present enough vaccine has been issued to local health authorities in England and Wales for 3,900,000 injections with British vaccine and 2,400,000 with Salk.
§ Mr. CroninWill the Minister indicate why he will not import substantially more Salk vaccine? Would he not be able greatly to increase the scope of, and enormously accelerate, his programme if he did so?
§ Mr. Walker-SmithSalk vaccine is being imported in very considerable quantities at the present time. During the next few months, supplies of Salk vaccine from Canada and the United States will, in fact, greatly exceed the supply of British vaccine, though that will increase later.
§ Mr. CroninIs it not the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman could import much more Salk vaccine than he is doing or intends to do in the next few months?
§ Mr. Walker-SmithI am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman means by "Is it possible to import it?". There is a good deal of Salk vaccine on the other side of the Atlantic, as he will know. What we want to do is to import sufficient, but only sufficient, to supplement our British supplies.
§ Mr. CroninWhat is the obstacle preventing this large amount of Salk vaccine crossing the Atlantic, apart from the Minister's obduracy about it?
§ 35. Mr. Croninasked the Minister if he will give two approximate figures indicating as far as is at present known the percentage protection given to the population under forty of two and three injections of poliomyelitis vaccine, respectively.
§ Mr. Walker-SmithI am advised that there is insufficient scientific evidence to justify the promulgation of percentages for which the hon. Member asks. Vaccination with two injections gives a good degree of protection. A third injection after an appropriate interval is likely to reinforce such protection, but it is not known precisely by how much, except that it falls short of guaranteed immunity.
§ Mr. CroninBut is it not well known that a third injection gives a protection vastly superior to that given by just two injections? Is the Minister not, therefore, offering the country a second-best solution to the poliomyelitis problem?
§ Mr. Walker-SmithNo, I do not know I would agree with the hon. Gentleman in using the words "vastly increased" degree of protection. My advice is that it is best to seek to vaccinate as many as possible of the people within the prescribed priority classes with two injections before proceeding to offer a possible and unknown additional degree of protection by way of a third injection.
§ 39. Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that there is a sufficient supply available of poliomyelitis vaccine in North America which has been fully tested for importation so as to enable every person who should be vaccinated against poliomyelitis to be so treated by the supply available in Great Britain supplemented by such imported vaccine; and what steps he is taking to deal with the position accordingly.
§ Mr. Walker-SmithLarge quantities of Canadian and American vaccine, tested both in the country of origin and in this country, are already being imported for use in the vaccination programme in supplementation of British vaccine. I am keeping both the programme and the supply position under constant review in the light of expert advice.
§ Mr. JannerWould it not be right to say that there is a sufficient supply available in North America to enable all the 834 requirements in this country to be met, and is it not, therefore, very serious that we are not importing as much as we should in order to supplement our own supplies, with the result that cases are remaining untreated in many instances when they should be treated?
§ Mr. Walker-SmithNo, Sir. The Salk vaccine, before being imported into this country, has to satisfy the full series of safety and potency tests applied to British vaccine, and, on present advice, I am not prepared to agree to Salk vaccine being used unless it has passed those full tests. It is wrong, therefore, to suppose that simply by increasing the orders for Salk one could immediately step up the programme of vaccination.
§ Mr. JannerBut have not Canada and the United States very carefully investigated the Salk vaccine, and are not all the medical authorities there concerned prepared to use that vaccine after its thorough investigation? Can the Minister say, in view of the serious position here, why he is not prepared to accept those tests?
§ Mr. Walker-SmithThis has all been gone into many times before. There is a difference in the virus strain used in these two vaccines, and it is broadly because of that that we put the Salk vaccine through the British tests in this country. So far as I know, that course has commended itself both to the House and to public opinion generally.
§ 40. Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Health whether he is now in a position to ensure that all persons who are exposed to the danger of contracting poliomyelitis in consequence of their work in hospitals or other places, together with their families, have been or will be in the near future treated by poliomyelitis vaccination if they so desire.
§ Mr. Walker-SmithVaccination has been available to hospital staff treating poliomyelitis cases in the infectious stage and to laboratory workers dealing with live poliomyelitis virus since September, 1956. It is now available to general medical practitioners and ambulance staff and to the families of all these groups.
§ Mr. JannerIs the vaccination available to the people who, in addition to those that the right hon. Gentleman has 835 mentioned, are subjected to the possibility of contracting this disease? Does he recollect the case of the Leicester public health officer who died in consequence of the fact that he was not treated? Will he see to it that these people are properly protected when they are put on to jobs which make it possible or probable for them to contract the disease?
§ Mr. Walker-SmithSo far as concerns the general categories of person to whom the hon. Gentleman's Question refers, they are covered by my reply. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise an individual case, perhaps he would be good enough to write to me or to put down a Question.