Time to take precautions as swine flu winter looms

Cherie Sivignon

The first of the season's snow falling on the day of our flu vaccinations.

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OPINION: What a logistical horror, writes Cherie Sivignon in this week's L'expat. 62 million jabs in the arm.

As promised, the French Government has implemented a vaccination programme to combat the threat of swine flu, known here as grippe A H1N1.

However, mainland France is home to about 62.5 million people. That's a lot of arms to jab, especially when kids under 8 are supposed to have two injections.

After frontline health workers and other people in essential services were vaccinated, call-up letters were sent to other at-risk groups. Those included pregnant women and children under 2.

My daughter Ella, who has just turned 2, received a letter directing her to the closest vaccination centre, 27km away at Thonon-les-Bains. Then, a few days later we received a letter for our eldest child, Hugo, 12.

I haven't followed the vaccination issue so I quickly read everything I could find. Initially, I was thinking thatswine flu produced symptoms no worse than seasonal flu but a quick scan of the information changed my mind. I decided to have all the family vaccinated after I read about a mutant strain of the virus that had killed two in France.

The Government's health surveillance institute says that the mutated strain could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tract, lung tissue in particular.

There are also documented cases of a mutant form of the flu that is resistant to the drugs used to treat the virus.

It sounded to me as if the H1N1 flu was getting nastier and I would feel terrible if one of my children was admitted to hospital with a life-threatening virus that could have been prevented.

So, like thousands of others across France, we set aside half a day on the first day of winter snowfall and trooped down to our nearest vaccination centre.

I had heard the process could take three hours. We were there for two and a half hours and only because the very nice firefighter in charge of the very slow-moving queue pulled aside families with small children and fast-tracked us. After completing a health questionnaire for each member of the family and authorisation forms for the children, we were seen by a doctor. He checked our information and ordered the correct dosage for each of us. A nurse completed the jabs.

Yes, we have to face the queue again to take back Ella and her brother Tom, 6, for their second shots but I'm pleased to have it done with no obvious side effects, aside from a sore arm.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon was on television last week apologising for the long queues. President Nicolas Sarkozy called for vaccination centres in large cities to open their doors on Sundays. Medical interns, army doctors and the Red Cross have all been called in to help in a logistical race against a virus that had killed 92 as of December 1.

Better safe than sorry.

» Cherie Sivignon is a former Southland Times journalist who has moved to France with her French-born husband and their family.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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