Vaccination

Vaccines – What do You Think?

| Readers 980
Picture of Vaccination

According to Auryn Cox of the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4q5g2ww55o ) we are heading for a difficult flu season. Auryn reports, “Flu cases among adults and children across Northern Ireland have more than trebled in the last two weeks, rising from 273 to 954, official figures show. Children and young people have been particularly affected and were admitted to hospital with flu with higher rates than any other age group in the week ending 23 November. In that same week the positivity …

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The tricky business of vaccinating young people…

| Readers 1216

Wednesday and Saturday for the past 8 weeks have been vaccination days in the pharmacy. The community pharmacy Covid19 vaccination service (CPCV) was launched at the end of March and 340 out of our 525 pharmacies signed-up. It’s a well-planned service and pharmacists have considerable clinical freedom and autonomy to get on with vaccinating the age cohorts, in support of GPs and the bigger vaccination centres, with one key requirement; no wastage of the precious vaccine! We get ten, 4 …

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Northern Ireland currently has one of the world’s highest COVID-19 vaccination rates

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Northern Ireland continues to rank among the world’s highest for the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered per capita. The chart above, from Our World in Data, shows that if Northern Ireland were an independent country, it would rank third in the world for the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered per person, behind the Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and fractionally ahead of Bahrain. The Northern Ireland Department of Health released this week a programme outlining its plans for vaccinating …

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Welcome to the Era of Vaccine Politics…

| Readers 1118

If recent developments around COVID vaccination has reminded us of anything, surely it’s that nothing is easy. Proof of anything is hard to come by. Weighing up a 90%-effective vaccine against a 70%-effective one might seem straightforward, but that’s without knowing if those numbers remain stable as more evidence comes in, and if so, who are the 10 and 30% and when and why a vaccine can be ineffective in a given instance. Then you’re straight on to, well what …

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Might the BCG Vaccine help protect from Covid-19?

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I remember nervously queuing up for the BCG jab at school, I also remember how some in the class thought it was very funny to punch people in the arm the rest of the week, ouch! I just had a peek and my BCG scar is still there over 30 years later, but now there might be a reason to praise your school jab. Researchers have noticed a correlation between countries that have TB Vaccination and lower rates of Covid-19 …

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Bovine TB and badgers: “This approach has not been tried anywhere else…”

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The different approaches of the various administrations in the UK and Ireland to attempting to eradicate bovine tuberculosis [TB] in wild animals, specifically badgers, are worth noting.  They are all in response to the EU Directive 64/432/EEC which, as the Welsh adminstration’s website notes, “requires Member States to provide plans showing how they will eradicate bovine TB in cattle.” In England, the UK government is pressing ahead with badger culling, despite the opposition of animal welfare groups like the RSPCA. In Wales, the Welsh …

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