A shortage of vital children’s vaccines has hit the Island — for the second time in nine months.

Paediatricians are telling patients they are out of supplies of a number of different jabs for infants, including those that prevent meningitis, chickenpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and polio.

The same problem happened in May last year, when the Department of Health admitted it could not meet demand, prompting doctors to warn about the dangers of having a section of the population more susceptible to potentially dangerous diseases.

The Department failed to respond to queries from The Royal Gazette about the dearth of vaccines this week.

But Steve West, a doctor at Wee Care Pediatrics, told this newspaper he was aware the Island currently had a short supply of Pentaxim, Varicella and Gardasil vaccines.

He explained in an e-mail: “Pentaxim is given at two, four, six and 18 months and protects against Hemophilus influenza B (Hib) meningitis, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus and polio.

“Varicella vaccine is given at around 12 months of age and protects against chickenpox, and Gardasil is against human papilloma virus.”

Dr West said immunisations were an important, cost efficient aspect of healthcare, along with antenatal care and well baby visits.

“We begin immunisation at two months of age because that is when the immunity transferred from the mom to the baby starts to diminish. So it is important to protect against these infectious agents for these very young, potentially vulnerable babies.”

He added: “If we are not able to give the appropriate vaccines to babies at their two, four and six month visits, in particular, then, yes, these children could be at risk.

“Vaccines are incredibly important. Innumerable lives have been saved by vaccines and we should be doing absolutely everything possible to ensure that our children receive all of their vaccines as recommended at the appropriate times.”

The paediatrician cited the vaccine for Hemophilus influenza B — the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children — as an example of how immunisation can affect the occurrence of a disease.

“The incredible success with this vaccine means that the incidence of Hib meningitis in children has declined by 96 to 99 percent in children,” he wrote.

“Doctors training today could realistically never see a case of Hib meningitis in a child during their career. So these vaccines are very important.”

Dr West said there were ten deaths from whooping cough in newborns in California in 2010 and an epidemic of the disease in Washington state in the US in 2012, with more than 2,500 cases

“We often falsely believe that these illnesses don’t exist any longer or the risk is much less but reality tells us that they do exist and the risk is still present if we don’t immunise.”

Family practitioner Gordon Campbell said he was aware of the shortage of vaccines, adding that the Department had been keeping doctors informed on supply.

“It sounds like some of the problems are beyond their control,” he said. Dr Campbell said there was a “window of opportunity” for giving immunisations but so long as the vaccines arrived reasonably soon, there should be no cause for alarm.

The website of the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which doctors here use to monitor supply and which was last updated in December — shows a shortage of the vaccines for Hib meningitis, whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus.

Doctors here obtain vaccines from the Department of Health, which is understood to order them from the Pan American Health Organization, at a discount.

The Department said in May that “some obstacles” in relation to obtaining vaccines were outside its control.

Paediatrician Sylvanus Nawab told The Royal Gazette that shortages of vaccines could result in children not getting immunised on time — as well as posing a risk during outbreaks.

“My take is that we need a centralised, computerised vaccine registry programme, where all the providers will be connected,” Dr Nawab said, citing problems with the Department of Health obtaining accurate records of the specific vaccines available from different providers.

“Having such centralised registry will enable the Department of Health to forecast how many vaccines are needed, and place orders in advance.”

Dr Nawab said staffing issues at the Department had impacted on the timely procurement of vaccines last year, but said the issues had been subsequently dealt with.

“We also have to mention that there are a subset of the population who don’t want to vaccinate their children,” he added. “When these children have these diseases, there is a risk for all the rest of acquiring them if they have not yet been vaccinated as per the schedule.”