# 1322
This via Radio New Zealand.
Front line workers to be offered bird flu vaccine
Posted at 12:14pm on 06 Dec 2007
The Minister of Health says front line personnel in eight priority groups will be the first to be offered a vaccine against a strain of avian influenza.
This will include about 100,000 personnel in health, police and other essential services likely to have direct contact with people exposed to the influenza in the event of an outbreak.
The Minister, David Cunliffe, says the aim is to be as prepared as possible even though it's not known when another influenza pandemic will arise.
He says the vaccine which is now in New Zealand, will remain in storage until needed.
Based on an existing clade of the H5N1 virus, a prepandemic vaccine isn't expected to be as protective as one made from the exact pandemic virus, but it has the advantage of being available at the start of an outbreak.
New Zealand, according to other reports, has made priority arrangements to purchase vaccine once a pandemic strain is identified, but that won't likely be available until six months into a pandemic.
The stockpiled vaccine is good through at least March 2009, and at that time a decision will have to be made whether to extend that use-by date, offer the vaccine to front line workers even if a pandemic hasn't started, or dispose of the vaccine.
New Zealand also reportedly has 1.22 million 10-pill courses of Tamiflu available for their population of just over 4.2 million people.
