Can foreigners in Taiwan get injection against swine flu?
All is in the title.
When an injection will be available in Taiwan, will it be possible for foreigners to get an injection ? How will it work ?
Thanks if you can help me 
You may receive an injection just as soon as the untested drug with unknown side effects to treat a virus which is only as threatening as a common flu or clocking up frequent flier miles on China Airlines, just as soon as there are enough to go around. I have heard from Taipei European School that the drugās first batch will contain 2 million potential poisonings, with an additional 10 million on the way.
Of course with a completely untested drug now acceptable by the hysterical public, then perhaps this will open the floodgates to other extremely beneficial drugs which can reverse chronic arthritis and such.
We just need to make them scared enough first.
At least Taipei European school have said they wonāt force my child to have an injection, thank goodness!
[quote=āljulienneā]Can foreigners in Taiwan get injection against swine flu?
All is in the title.
When an injection will be available in Taiwan, will it be possible for foreigners to get an injection ? How will it work ?
Thanks if you can help me [/quote]
The original plan of the Gāment was to vaccinate as many people of the high risk people as possible. First of all, medical personnel, kids, pregnant women, asmathics, etcā¦ Hence, the rest of the population -including healthy foreigners- will have to wait until all āurgentā cases are covered.
[quote]The Central Epidemic Control Center announced Sept. 9 that overweight people over the age of 25 will be placed in the ninth-in-line group of those who are to receive the H1N1 vaccine.
ā¦
An analysis by the CDC showed that 25 percent of patients suffering from the H1N1 virus have heart, lung, kidney, or liver problems, or diabetes. Of the 11 fatal cases so far, seven involved patients with preexisting chronic conditions, and two involved obese patients.
The Department of Health has thus decided that overweight people will be included the list of those who are ninth in line to receive vaccine shots. In this category are also included other high risk groups such as those over 25 with cardiovascular, lung, liver, and kidney problems, or with diabetes.
Huang Li-ming, director of the department of pediatric infectious disease at National Taiwan University Hospital, pointed out that information from foreign countries indicates that once infected with H1N1, those whose BMI is greater than 30, especially those older than 40, are more likely to require hospitalization.
ā¦
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has thus suggested that the ninth-in-line group be further subdivided into three levels. In the first level should be included high-risk patients currently hospitalized; these patients will be given priority over the other two levels in receiving the H1N1 vaccine shots. The second level should comprise those over 25 years of age who have cardiovascular, lung, liver, or kidney problems, or diabetes. The obese would then be classified as being level three, meaning they will be the last ones in the ninth-in-line group to receive the H1N1 vaccine.
[/quote]
http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=63166&ctNode=413
As to the potential dangers of the vaccination, such misgivings have already been voiced, but as long as we have a choice, it is fine with me.
ps.
Sula, I havenāt done the Math, but I bet there is a bigger chance of buying the farm by flying China Scarelines than the new piggie flu.
Important update on seasonal flu and swine flu shots:
[quote]Health authorities yesterday announced that the seasonal flu vaccination campaign is set to begin Oct. 1, but given a stock shortage amid high global demand, those planning to purchase the shot out-of-pocket this year will be turned away. Director-General Steve Kuo of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said the government managed to receive only 299,000 inoculation shots, despite the initial procurement of 500,000 shots.
This should be enough to cover all high-risk groups including children between six-months and 10 years of age, seniors above 65, medical care personnel and those suffering from rare diseases or in critical conditions, Kuo indicated.
[color=#FF0000]He said unlike previous years, the general public will not be allowed to purchase flu vaccines this fall.
But should there be shots remaining by the end of the campaign in November, then the rest may be made available in December for those who wish to be inoculated[/color], he added.
ā¦
The strain that residents should be wary of this year is the novel A(H1N1) virus, maintained Kuo
The CDC has purchased 1,000 million A(H1N1) vaccine shots from local vaccine manufacturer Adimmune Corp. and another 500 million from Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis.
Novartis is scheduled to complete human clinical trials by the end of September while Adimmune will attain results in late October
[/quote]
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/09/17/224952/Seasonal-flu.htm
Hence, healthy foreigners will have to wait now for both the seasonal flu shots and the swine flu, too, if they want to have them, along with all non-high-risk patients.
Why would a healthy person want a swinish injection?
So you dont end up feeling like a pig. I just got a taste of something today. Coworker was sick and came to our meeting. After several hours in the same room i got massive headache, eyepain and worse the sandwhich i ate (cost 7 bucks too) dis-agreed massively with me. CAme home immediately , spent hours nursing headache and eye ache worse then a bad hangover and massive tummy upset. Finally feeling ok now. The swine flu and its remnants still hanging round bay area.
there is no difference between the vaccine for the swine flu and the vaccine for any of the normal seasonal flu cocktails that appears annually. Absolutely none, apart from the fact that itās tailored to the specific antigens seen on the surface of the H1N1 variant, rather than H2N4 variants, H1N2 variants, etc that appear annually. I donāt know what all the fuss is about. Itās just another variety of flu, nothing to get worked up about. If you donāt normally get the seasonal flu jab every year, donāt bother with this one. If you do, then get it and stop panicking.
Thatās exactly right. I donāt know too much about what company is making the vaccine, but if its Roche (the same ones who distribute Tamiflu) I would be extremely careful in taking it.
Iām not sure what the ingrediants are in Taiwanā¦ But here in the States, Tamiflu includes Thimerosal (Mercury) as a preservative. Thereās no way I would take that, ever.
Tamiflu DOES NOT contain any mercury or any thimerasol, OK?
Tamiflu is not a vaccine, it is a drug for treatment of ongoing infection. Do not take Tamiflu unless told to by a virologist. Do not buy Tamiflu over the counter and take it ājust to be safeā: that risks the creation of Tamiflu-resistant flu virus, and then we may have no protection against infections from more serious flu varieties like avian flu. Tamiflu-resistant swine flu has already appeared in Denmark, China and the US (and probably Mexico as well).
Vaccines contain large complicated protein molecules that are unstable (their shape can collapse and then theyāre ineffective) and they need some agent to help them keep their shape. Thimerosal is a good molecule for doing just this. Some aluminium compounds are being developed to perform this job too, but at the moment, there is nothing better than thimerosal. There is actually no evidence that thimerosal in the amount found in vaccines is dangerous, just fear mongering from people who donāt know enough chemistry and pharmacology to understand. Tamiflu is not a preventive vaccine, and it has a completely different structure, and thus does not require thimerosal for stability in the package.
The standard swine flu vaccine currently being administered in the US and Europe, the one that contains thimerosal, is called Panderix and is made by Glaxo. This is a multidose vial, with multiple vaccine doses that may be given over some long period of time (and stored in the clinic fridge in the meanwhile) and hence needs added stability. The mercury-free version is called Celvapan and is a single dose preparation, thus is only opened once and needs less stability enhancers, but costs more for packing and distribution. Can I be more clear than this?.
I have no word yet on the Taiwan availability and preservative content of the vaccines prepared by other manufacturers such as CSL in Australia, and Sinovac, Hualan Biological Engineering and Shanghai Biotech in China, but suspect that they do contain thimerasol. Be aware that the Sinovac vaccine is suspected to be ineffective as a single dose vaccination, as it does not contain an adjuvant ( a compound that boosts the immune response to a single dose to acceptable levels for immunity).
If you donāt know something for a fact, please stop spreading stupid rumours that scare people and needlessly add to the bad hype.
[quote=āurodacusā][quote=āKaiXi333ā]
If you donāt know something for a fact, please stop spreading stupid rumours that scare people and needlessly add to the bad hype.[/quote][/quote]
Here Here!
Well Said
Thank you, urodacus. You add so much common sense and common science to this site.
You are our Karl K.
(Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki)
[quote=āskiā]
Here Here!
Well Said[/quote]
Where? Where?
One assumes you meant āHear! Hear!ā
Hey the Obama-meister has made the swine flu a national emergency in the US of A.
[quote]
Hence, healthy foreigners will have to wait now for both the seasonal flu shots and the swine flu, too, if they want to have them, along with all non-high-risk patients.[/quote]
Interesting. I am not in a high risk group and I got my regular flu shot three weeks ago.
[quote=āludahaiā][quote]
Hence, healthy foreigners will have to wait now for both the seasonal flu shots and the swine flu, too, if they want to have them, along with all non-high-risk patients.[/quote]
Interesting. I am not in a high risk group and I got my regular flu shot three weeks ago.[/quote]
What, you expecting the Gāment to folow a policy they made? You are using logic, my dear.
Either that or they really got through all high risk patients or the hospital did not get the memoā¦ many things can go Murphy.
Thanks for the info, urodacus. Always good to get some real information. However, I would like to point out one thing:
[quote=āurodacusā]There is actually no evidence that thimerosal in the amount found in vaccines is dangerous, just fear mongering from people who donāt know enough chemistry and pharmacology to understand.
[/quote]
Now, I am not sure how much mercury is put into vaccinations. However, I will point out that what is considered āacceptableā levels of mercury are not always acceptable, in terms of not having ill-effects.
I know that there are quite a few MDs, and other medical specialists, out there who consider mercury to exacerbate, if not be the cause of, many ailments. I have included a link here from an MDs website that I found:
drkaslow.com/html/mercury_s_influence.html
I know that one of my former teachers, who agrees with the idea that mercury poisoning is quite harmful (and even be a major cause of ailments), has seen results from his patients who had their mercury fillings removed. The one case that sticks in my mind was a woman who had yeast overgrowth that was causing her stomach pain (I believe). Once she had her mercury fillings removed, the yeast overgrowth was gone and the pain, or whatever was causing her trouble, was gone as well.
Who knows if the amount of mercury in vaccinations is harmful or not. But I definitely donāt trust what is defined as āacceptableā levels anymore.
Anyways, food for thought.
urodacus,
Do you have any information about what the schools are doing here when treating the āAā strain of flu? My nieces got this and they were tested, and the policy is, if you have this, then it is treated as H1N1/swine flu and you are given that appropriate drug. Both my nieces have had it, and most of their classmates I would guess (one niece met 5 of her classmates in the doctorās office last week). Excuse the ignorance, but is this what you are referring to here:
If so, then doesnāt that mean that it is really likely to happen here pretty soon? And are you saying, if you get diagnosed with the ālesserā but highly contagious A strain, you should refuse the treatment, if you can, that is?
Also, the doctor told my motherinlaw that the A strain can be washed out of your system if you have been drinking a lot of fluid, as it sits in your stomach or something. Does that sound plausible?
Thanks!