The 58 people who have died from the flu this winter so far in Greece could have been saved had they been given the flu vaccine according to a statement released by the Athens Medical Association (link in Greece). The Association is raising the alarm over chronic shortages of the vaccine which have left 40% of vulnerable groups unprotected at the height of this year’s flu season.
In previous years vulnerable people such as the elderly and those with chronic health problems were able to receive the vaccine via national health service clinics (IKA and subsequently EOPYY). However this year the public clinics did not receive any doses of the vaccine according to the Athens doctors, forcing patients to obtain the vaccine from pharmacies.
Yet even here there was not enough to meet demand.
Since the outset of the flu season in the autumn, many pharmacists have claimed to have received far fewer doses of the vaccine than they had ordered. The problem began to reach crisis levels at the beginning of January 2014 when the epidemic started to spread across Greece and supplies of the vaccine were not enough to protect even the most vulnerable. Given that the vaccine only lasts for three months even those who were vaccinated in October have been left unprotected as they have been unable to obtain booster shots.
Each vaccination costs only 6 euros meaning that all those who have died so far from the flu could have been vaccinated for a mere 350 euros.
Since the beginning of 2014 the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has warned that Greece is at a higher risk of a widespread and serious flu epidemic due to the increased number of people close to poverty and the low level of vaccination among the general public.
This is in part due to widespread suspicion of vaccines that has been cultivated by some sections of the press reporting on the possibilities of ‘complications’ from the injections – claims rejected by the medical community as ‘unscientific’.
Despite this however the government has not taken any measures to raise public awareness over the benefit of vaccines.
That a well-thought out strategy of prevention is cheaper than rushing to contain a crisis after it is too late is shown by the bird-flu scare of 2010. That panic led to massive stockpiles of the antiviral drug Tamiflu being built up at large cost that proved to be unnecessary. Those injections are now being given away for free as they approach their expiry dates.
While the medical community continually repeats the mantra that ‘prevention is the cheapest cure,’ this rather obvious point seems to have escaped the legislators responsible for reforming the national health system, given recent legislation passed by parliament includes no mention or provision for preventative medicine.