I'm late on my news tracking, but anyway, here goes...
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Posted: 08 February 2011
GENEVA : Twelve countries have reported suspected cases of narcolepsy linked to swine flu jabs, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday as its scientists said the findings warranted more investigation.
The WHO said in a statement that such sleep disorders, mainly in youngsters, had not been seen with vaccines in the past, and were more frequent in Sweden, Finland and Iceland than in other countries.
However, the UN health agency decided to keep its advice in favour of vaccination, including with the Pandemrix vaccine highlighted in the study, because it still felt the benefits outweighed a relatively small risk, spokeswoman Alison Brunier said.
Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder which causes extreme fatigue and often results in the patient falling soundly asleep without warning, even in the middle of an activity.
The Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline was used in 47 countries worldwide during 2009-2010, according to WHO, and was included by the agency in donations made to poor nations during the flu pandemic.
The WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) last week reviewed data from a Finnish study, which found that children injected with the Pandemrix flu vaccine were nine times more likely to contract narcolepsy than those who were not vaccinated.
"The committee agrees that further investigation is warranted concerning narcolepsy and vaccination against influenza (H1N1) 2009 with Pandemrix and other pandemic H1N1 vaccines," the WHO said.
"An increased risk of narcolepsy has not been observed in association with the use of any vaccines whether against influenza or other diseases in the past," it added.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has also launched a probe into the suspected connection.
"Since August 2010, following widespread use of vaccines against influenza (H1N1) 2009, cases of narcolepsy, especially in children and adolescents, have been reported from at least 12 countries," the WHO added.
Brunier noted that the EMA -- the regulatory body responsible for approving the vaccine -- had not taken any action. "There's no change to the WHO's current position on use of pandemic influenza vaccines," she added.
"This means that countries should continue vaccinating against H1N1 to immunise persons at risk of severe disease, using monovalent vaccines including Pandemrix if there is no trivalent seasonal vaccine available," she added.
Monovalent vaccines target a single strain of flu while trivalent vaccines, more commonly used every flu season, are effective against three strains.
The preliminary study by Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) published a week ago said the most likely explanation of the pattern found in four to 19 year olds was the "joint effect of the vaccine and some other factor(s)."
It stressed that more investigation was needed.
Last August, THL recommended discontinuing its use against A(H1N1) until it could study the signs of a connection.
- AFP/al
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:WHO probes H1N1 vaccine narcolepsy concerns
I asked our GP doctor one time, if it is possible for him to prescribe one drug that my children can use - one that has to side effects.
He simply smiled and told me that all drugs have side effects: they only vary in strength. Perhaps also on the time that they manifest, or in the way they affect us, as in this article's findings - sleep disorder.
Read on, and find out more...
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Posted: 01 February 2011
HELSINKI: Children injected with the Pandemrix Influenza A vaccine were nine times more likely to contract narcolepsy -- or sleep disorder -- than those who were not vaccinated, a preliminary study by Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare, THL, showed Tuesday.
"Currently, the most likely explanation is that the increase in narcolepsy is by joint effect of the vaccine and some other factor(s)," THL said.
The institute stressed in its preliminary study that more investigation was needed, but said young people aged four to 19 years old had a "manifold increased risk of falling ill with narcolepsy" if they had been inoculated against swine flu with Pandemrix.
Finland launched an aggressive inoculation programme against the H1N1 virus in 2009, but last August THL recommended discontinuing the use of Pandemrix until it could study whether it was connected to a sharp rise in the instance of narcolepsy cases in the country, especially among children.
The European Medicines Agency also launched a probe into the suspected connection.
Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder which causes extreme fatigue and often results in the patient falling soundly asleep without warning, even in the middle of an activity.
Doctors in Finland reported a more than tripling of narcolepsy cases during the swine flue pandemic, and THL said "the risk of falling ill with narcolepsy among those vaccinated in the 4-19 years age group was nine-fold in comparison to those unvaccinated in the same age group."
Hospital data shows that new child narcolepsy cases in Finland jumped from seven in 2007 to 16 in 2008 to 60 during the swine flu pandemic in 2009-2010.
Fifty-two of the latest cases, or 90 per cent, occurred in youths who had received the Pandemrix vaccine, THL said, adding most of the patients developed narcolepsy symptoms between two and 10 weeks after being vaccinated.
No changes in the number of cases were observed in children under four or youth over 19 years of age.
"The observed association (with the vaccine) is so evident that it is unlikely that other so-called confounding factors could fully explain the phenomenon," THL said, adding its next step was to evaluate if other factors had created "joint effects" with Pandemrix.
So far, an unusual spike in narcolepsy patients has only been observed in Finland and Sweden despite the fact that the vaccine Pandemrix has been used on more than 90 million people in 19 countries.
In Iceland, narcolepsy cases among youth also increased markedly, but this was not restricted to those who were inoculated against Influenza A, said THL.
The final report from Finland's national narcolepsy task force will be released by August 31, 2011.
-AFP/wk
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:Influenza A vaccine may cause child sleep disorder
