In my practice: Smart access

When the doctors at Perth’s Illawarra Medical Centre (IMC) discovered more than 60 children had experienced adverse reactions, including hospitalisation and seizures, after they had received a trivalent influenza flu vaccination at their clinic in 2010, they were understandably distressed.

‘This came as a huge surprise to us,’ IMC principal GP Dr Alan Leeb told Good Practice. ‘We believed we were in touch with what was happening to our patients and had no idea this was occurring.

‘We were vaccinating during the day and our children were presenting to emergency departments or after-hours GPs at night.’ This spike in adverse reactions prompted the staff at IMC to conduct a telephone survey of parents of children who had been immunised with the influenza vaccine in the preceding two months.

‘What we found was surprising,’ Leeb said. ‘Not only was there an increased reaction rate of 38% and eight admissions to hospital, but we discovered that a single brand of influenza vaccine was responsible for almost all of the reactions.’

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