jabs?

foxxy_one wrote: kebakat why not three at once? I have heard this..and my friend in HK only gets two as well.. i hear you have to have all MENZ by end of the year but that just means all people who started it get to finish it.. ?

Quite simple really..

With menzb, if you get it done really early (as in the schedule) you have to give them 4 jabs rather than 3 if you start it later. Plus we were VERY unsure about menzb because it's pretty unproven. He's since had 2 of the jabs, starting at 8 months.

Also we only wanted 1 in each leg so if he reacted to one we would immediately know which one it was. And we are very thankful we did as he reacted badly to the hip-hepb one. If he had both the standard ones in one leg and menzb in the other we wouldn't have known which of the others was causing his reaction.

What Aimee said. I spent 3 hours at a media briefing on the new immunisation schedule, it officially comes into effect on 1 June so we will have some info up on OHbaby! before then.

Basically they have combined the dtap-ipv and hib-hepb into one injection, and this will be on the official schedule from 1 June, altho some docs are already using it due to low stocks of two separate vaccines, and some docs will have stock left over after 1 June so some babies during the transition may still have to have those separately.

The MenzB is finishing. It was never intended to be a long term vaccine, it was an epidemic-response vaccine to help stop the epidemic that occured in the mid-late 90's, hence why there was such a rush to get it made available. Now that the epidemic has slowed, the vaccine is obsolete, but they are reserving the right to add it to the schedule again in future should there be another epidemic.

Prevenar is the new pneumoccocal vaccine, only it's not really new, it's been available in the States, the UK and Australia for years, on their free immunisation schedules for a number of years, and has been available in NZ at a cost for several years. Both my gremlins have had it, they got it free in Australia under Medicare.
Babies who's immunisations commence after June 1st will get the Prevenar, those born 1 Jan - 31 May will be recalled for it.

There are other changes to the schedule which apply to older children, can't remember them all off by heart but we will be publishing the info in the next few weeks. They are also hoping to have the HPV (cervical cancer vaccine) on the schedule for 12 year old girls by the end of this year.

Oh and to clarify, the MenzB and the Prevenar are not at all related. MenzB is for meningococcal B virus, Prevenar is for pneumococcal virus, both can potentially cause meningitis and have similar symptoms but they are completely different diseases. The decision to finish the MenzB as the Prevenar is starting is purely coincidental.

Hope this helps!