The government should propose a solution to the “chaos” caused by a shortage of influenza vaccines, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
This year’s government-funded flu vaccination program was launched by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Oct. 5, with about 6 million doses available.
However, the CDC on Saturday temporarily suspended the program for people aged 50 to 64 to prioritize other groups with a higher risk of serious flu complications or of spreading the disease.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee chairwoman Alicia Wang (王育敏) told a news conference in Taipei that the COVID-19 pandemic should have prompted officials to step up disease prevention efforts.
However, the Ministry of Health and Welfare did not make policy adjustments, so now there are not enough doses of flu vaccines, Wang said.
If the government is unable to increase the supply of flu vaccines, it should administer them group-by-group according to priority, as was done in the past, she said.
Last year, free flu vaccines were given in three stages, with schools and healthcare workers in the top-priority group, followed by adults over the age of 65 and preschool children, then others, she said.
However, this year the free vaccinations are being administered among all eligible groups simultaneously, which is creating long lines at health facilities, Wang said.
The government’s policy is inconsistent, she said.
While it previously “vigorously” encouraged people to get vaccinated, last week it said that it is okay not to and as long as 25 percent of the population is vaccinated, herd immunity would be achieved, she said.
“With such mixed messages, how can people trust the government?” she asked.
Some healthcare workers have not yet been vaccinated, Wang said, adding that the government is responsible for providing sufficient supplies.
The Executive Yuan and the ministry should take responsibility and solve the “chaos,” she added.
Separately yesterday, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said that as of Monday, the vaccination coverage rate among people aged 65 or older is 39.1 percent and 27.5 percent among pre-school-aged children older than six months, with the target rates being 52 percent and 55.5 percent respectively.
An estimated 350,000 pre-school children still need to get vaccinated to achieve the target, Lo said.
The number of hospital visits for flu-like illness reported last week was 33,440, slightly lower than the week before, Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said.
The numbers are still low compared with what is expected at peak flu season, Guo said.
No serious flu complications or cluster infections have been reported in the past four weeks, but case numbers are expected to gradually increase as the temperature drops, he said.
Meanwhile, a borough warden from New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) yesterday carried a baseball bat to the CDC building to protest “unfair” allocation of vaccines.
The warden said that he pre-ordered hundreds of vaccines from the local health bureau, but received only a few dozen.
Lo said people have been exceptionally eager to get vaccinated his year, so local health departments should distribute vaccines to eligible groups, with priority given to those with higher risks.
The number of vaccines distributed to vaccination stations have been limited to 30 to 100 at a time, so it is impossible that they were all being sent to a single location, he said.
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