§ 2. Mr. James LamondTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the state of supplies of flu vaccines within the National Health Service.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mrs. Edwina Currie)Vaccination for flu is a selective programme recommended only for at-risk groups. The number of doses given in recent winters has varied between 1.4 million and 1.6 million, but demand this winter appears, for extraneous reasons, to have increased to more than 2 million doses. That is 25 per cent. higher than normal. We expect some 2.2 million doses to have been delivered by next week.
§ Mr. LamondIs the Minister aware that as long ago as early October constituents of mine were being turned away by their doctors, especially at the Royton health centre? They were told that no flu vaccine was available and that if they wished they could put down their names for next year. It is obvious from press reports in the last few days that this situation is widespread. Surely the Minister realises that this is preventive medicine at its best and that to have allowed flu vaccine supplies to dry up was a grave mistake.
§ Mrs. CurrieI hope that the figures I have just given show that rather than flu vaccine supplies drying up, they have substantially increased this year. I understand that the scare stories running in the press resulted from a press conference held by an organisation called the Influenza 125 Monitoring and Information Bureau which is run and funded by the three companies which produce the vaccine. We have no evidence whatever of any such epidemic or of any such scare having any basis in actuality.