Following the Union Health Ministry's latest policy to vaccinate the health workers who are managing H1N1 cases, the Public Health Department in Tamil Nadu has almost finished the programme of administering Penenza vaccine to physicians and health workers in the state. The remaining a few number of staff will be given the shots in another two to three days, said Dr R T Porkai Pandian, the new director of the department.

For the vaccination programme the state has received a consignment of 20,000 doses of the Penenza vaccine, which was produced in France by Sanofi Pasteur, and the doses are provided to the central health ministry by the World Health Organization. The preventive vaccine will be given to the private hospitals also for administering the staff working there.

In the first phase, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other para-medical staff in the hospitals are targeted, and in second and third phases students and staff of medical education department, workers in Community Health centres, emergency service providers, field staff and Anganwadi workers will be taken up for vaccination, said Dr S Sreedharan, chief entomologist in the DPH. He said so far 16000 doses have been finished for administering 15543 health workers including 11000 physicians. No side effect of the medicine was reported from anywhere in the state. There are around 20,000 people working with the department of public health.

The health workers are given the shots at first because they are very much at risk of contracting the H1N1 infection. The vaccination is given as a precautionary measure and just to boost the confidence level of the employees. It is carried out using auto disabled syringes by trained vaccinators and only single dose is given to one person. However, the Public is not targeted now. The report of the immunization will be sent to the Directorate of Emergency Medical Relief (EMR) in New Delhi, Dr Sreedharan said.

In the first week of this month, the scare about the pandemic influenza once again came back to the state when a pregnant woman was tested positive for H1N1 virus in Coimbatore. It was a fresh case after a period of over two months. Last year the first case of Swine Flu detected in Tamil Nadu was also happened in Coimbatore. According to sources, in Coimbatore alone, over 500 people have tested positive for Swine Flu till two months ago. The latest detection of the virus makes it sure that even today Swine Flu virus is active in the state.

Recently when the Union Health secretary Dr Sujatha Rao visited Chennai, they said that an indigenous vaccine for H1N1, which is undergoing clinical trials, would be available in the market from June this year. It will be much cheaper than the imported vaccine.

In southern states, the Department of Public Health in Karnataka has already finished the vaccination programme. In Kerala, which received 27000 doses of Penenza, the drive is yet to finish.

Dr Amar S Fettle, the nodal officer for H1N1 in Kerala told Pharmabiz that vaccination would be administered to more than one lakh health workers comprising all the departments under the health ministry. One death reported in Kollam last week due to swine flu virus and eight cases tested positive have raised serious concern for the Health Department in the state.