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Two reports have exposed serious shortcomings in our key vaccination campaigns.
Today, a report on last year’s measles outbreak in February acknowledged in detail the frustrations of medical staff and patients. In February Auckland Regional Public Health was found to be “understaffed” and “lacking training in outbreak management”.
In May, public health “ran out of resources” to locate and track all those infected. As of July, only 9,000 doses out of 40,000 had been distributed in Auckland, and in September, several suppliers “ran out of stock”.
There was confusion, or in the words of the report, “everyone and no one was responsible for the overall control of the outbreak.”
There is disagreement among health experts about how bad the reports are.
“I don’t think the reports are scathing,” responded Chief Health Officer Dr. Ashley Bloomfield.
“The report is damning in that regard,” says University of Auckland vaccinologist and associate professor Helen Petousis-Harris.
“I think we’ve seen an erosion of public health. Funding is one of those constraints and this has been going on for a long period of time.”
There is still an “immunity gap” between the Maori and Pacific communities, which suffered the most. However, these groups had limited participation in measles health strategies, services and communications.
“It really is a pleasure to see that this has been heard, that this report happened, that it highlighted these things and gave us the opportunity to address these issues,” says Professor Helen Petousis-Harris.
In April, Newshub revealed that the main flu distributor was running out of stock, despite messages to the contrary from the Ministry.
Today, a report on supply chains verified that report, pointing to “extreme frustrations.”
The report said doctors were placed in “difficult positions with patients encouraged to get vaccinated and upon arrival to find that there was no stock.”
However, GPs say the Ministry did not even ask them to give their opinion on the review.
“The College of GPs was disappointed that it was not consulted directly for the flu report,” says Dr. Bryan Betty of the Royal NZ College of GPs.
Dr. Bloomfield, who claimed that there were many vaccines and that the public could take a beating from their GP, does not believe he failed to be transparent about the reality.
“I don’t think the public was misled at all. When we became aware of the distribution problems, and they brought them up directly and, of course, in the media, that’s when we intervened,” he says.
But Dr. Betty says that sometimes the messages to the front line were confusing.
“I think it is really important that there is clear and consistent communication on issues related to the supply and distribution of vaccines. There needs to be transparency in the system.”
He says there is a lot of work ahead to make sure we are ready for a COVID vaccine launch.
