More healthcare news snippets...

State orders 1,3-million swine flu jabs

THE Department of Health has ordered 1,3-million doses of swine flu vaccine from pharmaceutical companies Solvay and Sanofi-Aventis and it plans to begin vaccinating priority groups in mid-March. The vaccine against A(H1N1) swine flu has been incorporated into a trivalent jab formulated for the southern hemisphere's winter flu season and also protects against seasonal strains A(H3N2) and influenza B. With a limited budget - R118m for procuring vaccines and R12m for a public awareness campaign - the department has earmarked the shots for frontline healthcare workers, HIV-positive children under the age of 15, pregnant women and people with chronic lung and heart problems. Head of communicable diseases Frew Benson said unfortunately, there was not enough to cover everyone. The government's vaccination programme will be done in stages, starting with healthcare workers and HIV-positive children. The vaccine provides protection against flu within 10 to 14 days. The trivalent flu vaccine has not yet been registered by the Medicines Control Council but approval is expected shortly, said Benson. To date, 12 636 cases of swine have been confirmed in SA, with 93 deaths, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Among the people who died, half of those tested for HIV were positive, and 28% were pregnant. The first batch of 200 000 doses of vaccine is expected to come from Australian-based Solvay, and to arrive in SA next month. Solvay's business unit manager for its product Influvac, Meredith Chambers, declined to say how much the company was charging the state, but said its private sector single exit price would be R43. This is the price paid by doctors and pharmacists, who will then add dispensing fees.

Tamar Kahn: Business Day, 27 January 2010

AIDS ignorance in SA down

A NEW survey suggests that more South Africans are discussing HIV testing with their partners and, as a result, those couples are more likely to submit themselves for tests. Furthermore, there has been a significant uptake of testing among men, in particular. The survey, the second National Communication Survey, attributes this behaviour to the success of the country's HIV/AIDS communications programmes. A senior researcher at Johns Hopkins University, Dr Larry Kincade, one of the lead researchers on communication interventions in South Africa, said the 2009 survey demonstrated a casual connection between such programmes and people's behaviours. He said the more programmes people were exposed to, the more they were positively influenced, adding that this was a clear indication that the programmes were having a substantial impact on South Africans. The survey found that knowledge of HIV/AIDS had increased significantly since the last survey, which was conducted in 2006, with more people now aware that having multiple sexual partners increased their risk of contracting the virus. Also, an "overwhelming majority" of South Africans now knew that condoms were effective for HIV prevention. However, the survey also highlighted a number of gaps in the programme, including that the message needed to be sustained, that links between alcohol, sex and HIV needed to be strengthened, and that knowledge levels of safe feeding practices for HIV-positive pregnant mothers needed to be increased. Junaid Seedat, communication, advocacy and campaigns manager for the South African National AIDS Council, said the National Communication Survey was a great barometer of how communication was increasing knowledge about HIV, and bringing about change in people's attitudes to having responsible sexual lifestyles, and provided the foundation for an evidence-based national HIV communication strategy.

The Mercury, 28 January 2010

Cape measles outbreak

WESTERN Cape health authorities say they are on high alert after receiving reports that nearly 250 people around the province have contracted measles in the past five months. The provincial department of health confirmed that the 236 laboratory confirmed cases of the highly contagious disease reported around the Western Cape since September warranted describing it as "an outbreak". The department has already started implementing measures to address the unusually high number of cases. It announced that a national mass immunisation programme, which was due to start in April, has been pushed forward and will now begin this month. No deaths have yet been reported in the Western Cape as a result of the disease. Out of these confirmed cases, only 10 involved people over the age of 40. Steyn was unable to quantify how many adults had been diagnosed with measles. Both Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal were hit by measles outbreaks late last year. More than 1 000 children in Gauteng contracted measles in the space of three months. The Eastern Cape has also experienced a surge in measles cases during the past month. A team from the Eastern Cape health department travelled around the province to vaccinate people against measles. And north of the border, 22 people died in Zimbabwe during the month of December because of a measles outbreak there.

Sipokazi Maposa: The Cape Argus, 1 February 2010